


Arch to the Sky

by kalijean, SLWalker



Series: Arch to the Sky [87]
Category: Midnight Blue - Fandom, due South
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:57:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalijean/pseuds/kalijean, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: 1998: With the consulate about to close, Ray and Ren are ready to leap into a future together, but before they can, Ren's past returns to remind him that there are some things you just can't outrun.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story has no set ETA to finish. It's a WIP and we have no idea when it'll be done; could be months, could be years, so be advised. Obviously, it won't make much sense at all if you haven't read at least a big chunk of the rest of Arch to the Sky, too.

# Arch to the Sky

"...anyone coming down the Gates of the Mountains can see that the laminations of ocean beds compressed in the cliffs on one side of the river match the laminations in the opposite cliffs, and, looking up, can see that an arch, now disappeared into sky, originally joined both cliffs. There are also missing parts to the story of the lonely crosses ahead of us, almost invisible in deep grass near the top of a mountain. What if, by searching the earth and even the sky for these missing parts, we should find enough of them to see catastrophe change into the shape of remembered tragedy?

"Unless we are willing to escape into sentimentality or fantasy, often the best we can do with catastrophes, even our own, is to find out exactly what happened and restore some of the missing parts -- hopefully, even the arch to the sky."

**Norman Maclean** ; Young Men and Fire

 

 

#### Prologue

_November 1995_

 

_"How could you?"_

In eight years, Russ had never heard Mike sound like that. He had heard him in a number of states from easy-going mockery to genuinely anxious, from laughing his fool head off over something to beat and battered, but Russ had never heard that tone before. It left him blinking, unable to formulate a response, standing behind his desk.

Mike looked like he was ready to come across the desk at him, coiled tense and staring with unnerving intensity, voice sharp-edged as he asked, "Russ, _why_?"

Russ opened his mouth, then closed it, and snapped into gear. "Mike, it was the best thing for him. It was the best thing for everyone."

"Bullshit!" For as brash as he could be, Mike very rarely swore, and it was yet another thing that made Russ recoil internally, if not externally. "He's _ours_ , Russ, you don't just throw him out to the wolves! What is _wrong_ with you?!"

The truth was, it made Russ miserable, too. No one wanted Renfield to go, no one wanted him to be transferred. But there wasn't any room for a Mountie who couldn't do his job, and Mike himself had nearly ended up with his head busted in because Renfield locked up and didn't respond fast enough to a call for backup. Russ hoped that if anyone would understand, it would be Mike; God knew, the man had been shadowing Renfield for months now, trying to pull him back out of the spiral, trying to get him back into mental shape. It had gotten to the point where Mike's work was starting to suffer, and finally, it was time for a command decision. It was one of the reasons why Russ hadn't told him; better to make it a clean break that could heal, rather than something messy that might never.

"Mike, we did our best. I offered him any administrative posting available, I called in every favor I had to make sure he got the pick of what he wanted. Maybe in a few years, he'll be ready to go back out."

"So that's it." Mike was all but shaking. "We cover things up, and then we get rid of the evidence like--"

 _"Corporal,"_ Russ snapped, and regretted it the same instant it was out of his mouth when Mike recoiled. He tried to soften his own tone. "Mike. I know this isn't ideal, I _know_ that, but we did everything we could--"

"You gave up. You gave up on him." The look on Mike's face made Russ's heart ache. Anger, still. But bewildered hurt, too. "God, Russ, how could you?"

Mike's voice had cracked, and he was clearly on the edge of tears. Russ tried to steel himself. They'd get through this; they could keep tabs on Renfield, even if Renfield was in Chicago. They could come back from this, and hell, maybe in a few years Renfield could even transfer back. It wasn't worth the possible destruction of one good cop for the sake of one that might not be saved. "I did what I had to do. It was the right thing to do, Mike. And you know it."

Mike stared back at him, and in that moment, Russ realized that he was being looked at like a stranger for the first time in the better part of a decade. "No. I don't."

Silence reigned.

Mike finally looked away, the anger bleeding out of him and being replaced with a look of heartsick defeat, as he swiped a hand across his face. "May I be excused?"

"Go ahead." Russ felt his own heart sink. But he didn't realize until later that there was no coming back from this.


	2. Chapter 1

#### Chapter 1

_November 1998_

 

Lunch could not come fast enough.

November brought with it chill rain, the last lingering leaves and the unexpected sense of transition and anticipation.  Every other institution in the city was gearing up for the federal holiday the next week, but not the Consulate.  It was winding down.  At least, their part of it.  Closing the liaison office meant a smattering of new duties in addition to the headache of the old ones, and it served to be exhausting whilst utterly failing to occupy Renfield Turnbull's scattered mind.

That, and it lent itself to spikes of Inspector Thatcher getting decidedly _tetchy_.

He could not entirely blame her.  The new civilian staff seemed to be hand-picked to be at least a little clueless.  More than once, he had to answer the phone and give them the proper bus lines to board to find their way to the Consulate.  There had been an incident with a taxi driver that still made him wince to think about.  Of course, there were some problems when it came to the currency exchange rate.  Turnbull mostly fielded these issues, to save the Inspector from blowing steam out of her ears, but even he was given to moments of mostly good-natured exasperation.

Until such time, anyway, as he had to boggle about how it was that _he_ had become the expert.

Then, his thoughts were equal parts amusement and melancholy; anxiety, as well, because they still had not figured out exactly what they were going to do in another two months.

He usually did his best to forget that, and helped the new staff settle in.  There were three in all; one older woman, who seemed like she would be more at home serving high tea -- something Turnbull understood, at least -- than she was in the Consulate.  One young man, the son of a diplomat, who had gotten this position by Lord only knows what means.  And one young woman, who seemed as though she would likely be the one running the place, once he and Thatcher were gone.

At the very least, their presence had taken some of the most basic secretarial duties from his shoulders.  He still found himself answering phones, and processing forms, but not quite to the same degree as he had before.  Now, he was just doing his best to wrap up what little was left in case files, send documents to Ottawa and not think too terribly hard about _what next_.

It had been quiet today, anyway, and Renfield shut the file in front of him before rubbing his eyes, sighing out in the solitude of the office he'd inherited from Fraser some time back.  Counting down the seconds.

When he opened them and blinked away the blur, the hand ticked past the half-hour and he grabbed his stetson to head out the door.

Ray wouldn't be joining him today.  He was on his own, and he planned to put as much service under these high browns as he possibly could before having to come back to this place.  It was cool enough outside that his uniform was comfortable enough, and he could have quite a walking pace without breaking a sweat.  It didn't take away his urge to run -- one part for the pure pleasure of running, one part for the sake of outrunning his own scattered thoughts -- but it made it more bearable, and he was grateful for it.

His cover was halfway on his head before the door finished closing and it was on a delay he realized...  realized...

He sniffed.

Blinked.

Sniffed again, opening the consulate door and sticking his head back through to try and trace whatever ghost of a smell that had caught his attention, frowning, eyebrows drawn.

Whatever it had been, it was gone.

It wasn't often that he truly dismissed his own sensory input, and later he would reflect that he shouldn’t have, but in truth he already felt himself to be in a thousand places at once.

He brushed it off.

Renfield stepped out into autumn in the city, the one time of year when the lingering colors of what patches of nature could be found in Chicago could swallow the color of his uniform.

  


 

"Look, I just need to know if this policy can be transferred or not.  Can't you people look it up in the computers or whatever?  Huh?  I've been paying you people for fifteen years, you can manage to look that one thing up for me."

Ray Vecchio tapped his pencil on the desk, watching the clock irritably.  After a day spent in court, putting away Roland Patrone for a good, long time and three other assholes besides, he was ready to get out of here.  If his damned insurance company could figure out whether or not they could transfer his policy to their Canadian offices, anyway.  The clock kept ticking and Ray kept getting more and more impatient.  Now, he was on hold again.  For the _third time_.  Jesus, if he heard a muzak version of Yakkity Sax one more time, he was gonna just beat the receiver against his desk.

He tapped his pencil a little more aggressively.  Ten minutes over.  Ten minutes where he could be outside, on his way to the Consulate, then on his way to the matchbox.

Despite the delay, Ray was okay.

Sometimes, that still surprised him.

There were times when he and Frannie would make eye contact.  Times when one would almost speak, outside of the times they were required to by being coworkers.  Times when he got a message through Dewey -- of all people! -- about the family.  Times when he thought maybe they might call.  Times when he thought he might call them.

Times when he was sure it would be okay.

Ray could only blame his optimism on one man.

"Yeah?  Finally!  Okay, listen, you fax me the form tomorrow, then I'll fill it out and fax you the form back, got it?  Good.  Good.  I don't wanna have to call again.  Yeah, that's right, your hold music could make a man homicidal.  Uh huh.  Yeah, whatever, man.  Back atcha."

Somehow, despite it all, Ray grinned when he hung up the phone and headed for the door at a pace that was just shy of a run.

 

 

 

"--then, Miss Simpson accidentally took a wrong transfer and ended up on the way to Racine."  Ren was shaking his head, but mostly, he looked happy.  Probably happy to get out of the Consulate.  Ren had been really restless lately, and Ray sometimes wondered how the Hell he was ever gonna keep up.  So far, though, he had.  And hey, the benefits were kinda nice, too, because when that restlessness didn't lead to driving or sports, Ren ended up working it out on _Ray_  and honest to God, Ray could find no complaints with _that_.

"Maybe she coulda picked up a big block-of-cheese hat," Ray mused, following Ren down the hallway to the matchbox, and grinned like a dope when Ren laughed. "Hey, that's what you're supposed to do when you go to Wisconsin!  And we haven't managed to get one yet."

"Perhaps next time."  Ren unlocked the door, and all but dragged Ray through it, before reaching past him to close it again and back him up against it.

Ray let his weight sag against the door, hands pretty much moving on autopilot to unbuckle the Sam Browne.  "Uh huh.  You said that last time, too."

"You keep _distracting_  me, Ray."  Ray couldn't see that grin, but he could hear it and he could feel it, up against his neck, right before those teeth pressed against his skin and Ren went to leaving a mark that would be what, an inch above the one he left this morning?

No.  Ray had no complaints.  He drew in a breath at the pressure ache, eyes sliding closed, and got a handful of Ren's tunic with one hand, his other sliding up to unbutton the shoulder strap. "There you go again, pots and kettles and Mounties."

Ren didn't even bother answering that, just sucking harder against Ray's neck before breaking off and shifting his body closer, pinning Ray properly against the door and biting on his ear next.  After making sure Ray was covered in goosebumps and sporting a really hard dick, he nuzzled there and breathed out, making Ray shiver. "Pity we don't have much time."

"Nothin' says we have to go," Ray answered, getting an arm around Ren's waist and holding him flush just so Ray could rock against him.  He wasn't sure what was better; the instant response of a rock back, or the breathless moan he got in answer to that.  It was enough to make him shiver again, just _because_.

"We already paid."

"You feel real good."

 _"Ray..."_   It was loving, heated, a little exasperated and it made Ray glow.

Ray leaned his head in and sucked soft just above the high collar of Ren's red serge tunic, before murmuring against the damp skin he left, "Well, you know, there is such a thing as a quicky..."

"Ray, _please_..."

"Or we could just be late," Ray drifted his mouth up, getting his teeth into Ren's earlobe and then sucking on it with near nonchalance.

"Lord."  That was definitely a moan.

 _Gotcha,_  Ray thought, grinning himself right off that ear, before celebrating his victory by swiftly stripping a Mountie of his gear.

 

   
  
  
There was something achingly _adorable_  about Ray Vecchio on the sheet.

It was a superlative that Ray would probably find laughable, but it was apt.  Chicago bluster mixed with the poetry of curling; Ray's natural grace mixed with a basic lack of experience.  More than once in the past couple of weeks, Ray would growl and throw his hands into the air, declaring himself incapable and then immediately try again.  Occasionally, he slipped and fell on the sheet.  Once, he'd ended up nearly landing on his face and the brush he had been learning how to use slid all the way to the opposite wall.  

Most of the time, though, he was laughing.

Renfield brushed back and forth across the ice with an irrepressible smile on his face.  There was a pure glee in Ray, sometimes; almost innocence of a sort that came when Ray was having fun in the moment.  It inspired the type of wondered smile that reminded Renfield of a time when the man held a beach grass weave against his forehead and asked if he was hippie enough.

He caught plenty of those looks as Ray navigated the ice; wonder that seemed to be directed at Renfield himself, pleasure in his own improvements, and the natural glee anyone must feel as they observe the pure, unfettered beauty that was curling...

Well, on the last part, perhaps Renfield was editorializing a bit in the privacy of his own mind.  But part of him regretted being unable to see the look that must've crossed Ray's face when he finally, successfully, threw a stone.

It sailed across the ice, a manifestation of the grace he knew his Ray possessed in spades, and he set off to sweep its path to the button.  If he had anything but trajectory in his head in that moment, he likely would've thought it some sort of metaphor for them.  

He could hear Ray laughing in triumph behind him, and though Renfield glowed with pride, whether he returned the laugh was lost to him; there were times when his very form disappeared from his awareness, and this was one.  Someone slid up beside him, adding his brush to the task, and he glanced up to nod in thanks and greeting before looking back to the--

 

 _He was_ seeing _things._

For the millisecond that his vision flicked back to the stone, it was haunted by an eyebrow up behind frighteningly familiar pot leaf sunglasses and while it was most certainly, assuredly, stupidly, completely, _mind-bogglingly_  an hallucination, it still knocked Renfield Turnbull mentally sideways and, from under him, his feet.

It was not the first time he had found himself on his back on the sheet, convinced he was delusional.  A phantasm of Guy Laurent filled his vision to superimpose the ceiling.  

"Hey," he said simply.

With head injuries, one could hardly choose one's symptoms.  Mouth open, Renfield stared, unable to reply.

Guy shrugged, offering him a half-grin.

Renfield stared all the way up until Ray slid up to look over him, too, and Ray's double-take at the pattern on those glasses confirmed the apparition was _real_  and it was then Renfield groaned quietly, bringing a hand to his forehead.

"You okay, Renny?" Of course it was Ray, Guy would never remotely consider calling him that as there was always an unspoken agreement that he'd have to swat the man with a rolled-up newspaper if he had.  It was quiet concern; half distracted by apparently sizing up the strange man in pot leaf sunglasses and the other half probably quiet if only to save a measure of Renfield's pride.  

He only managed a stunned nod.  Guy's sunglasses were just that touch down his nose that meant a pair of very knowing eyes peeked above, and the man flicked a little look to Ray.  Sniffed.  His eyebrows drew together and he squinted; Ray looked back in bafflement.  

"You sure?" He asked Renfield, still eyeballing Guy as though he wasn't entirely sure the man hadn't pushed Renfield over.  "'Cause you nearly took out an old guy with that brush..."

"Yes, Ray."  He moved to push himself up by two hands to the ice, and with a wince, thought better of it.  

Guy appeared to eye Ray's neck.  Sniffed again.  Some kind of understanding seemed to dawn, and a slow smile crept across his face as he nodded at apparently nothing.  The fact that Guy seemed to be... _smelling_  their relation to one another twigged some strange kind of pride in Renfield that meant even stuck on _what_ , he quirked his eyebrows in affirmative answer.  

Ray crouched down beside him, looking him over, apparently at least comforted by Renfield's ability to carry on a silent conversation.  When Ray glanced up at Guy again it was _Ray_  that seemed to dawn understanding.  Renfield was starting to feel just a bit left _out_.

Guy's smile had a rare quality to it, and he motioned briefly at Ray.  Even in something of a daze, Renfield recognized the look for a not-quite-question.  Seeking confirmation.

And even in that daze, he didn't hold back a proud smile and a nod.

"Hey, if a guy didn't know better he could start to feel a little left out, here," Ray interjected into the silent conversation, as if reading Renfield's mind.  But it was good-natured, and Renfield finally managed to drag the sense to speak back as Ray was extending a hand to Guy.

"Ray-- it-- of course-- I--"  Guy was taking that hand and shaking it.  Renfield laughed, rubbing at his temple.  "...this is... this is Guy Laurent."

"Yeah, I guessed."  Ray narrowed his eyes in brief scrutiny, then let go of that hand. "Ray Vecchio.  You light any johns on fire in this town, make sure you don't do it when I'm on duty."

Guy shrugged slowly, wagging the brush that was angled over his shoulder.  There was a salute of two fingers, the kind of abashed that was actually most certainly _pride_.

Renfield laughed and swiped a hand down his face.  

 

 

 

Guy didn't seem to want to talk until they were outside - as much as he ever wanted to talk in the normal course of things, anyway - and though he was rather preoccupied with _why_  Guy was there, Renfield had no desire to waste the time they'd allocated for curling.

So, they had.

Ray's stone had carried on without them, landing reasonably close to its destination; Ray truly was graceful, and Renfield wasn't offering empty flattery when he thought the man could excel at the sport.  There were also certain advantages to standing back to observe a throw or two.

There was a disconcerting amount of glee in Guy Laurent for the very fact of Ray Vecchio's existence.  Renfield understood it, truly he did, for the man was indeed something to celebrate; it just seemed odd to feel quite so much for a relationship with which one had no _involvement_.  But even in the midst of curling, Guy would eye Ray and beam, and Ray took it with a suitable amount of baffled semi-amusement.  The last time, he actually stuck his tongue out at one of those looks, and Guy had cracked up.  Somehow, the curling became even more perfect for it.

Guy wore hideously mismatched shoes, one of them taped off at the bottom; they were the _same pair_  the man seemed to have curled in for years.  There were, perhaps, a few more lines behind those sunglasses.  Otherwise, Guy seemed almost frozen in time.

Playing alongside Guy probably held some sort of nostalgia, but Renfield didn't examine it.  He let the sport be his existence for a little while, surrounded by Ray's still-adorable enthusiasm, and when the time came to step off the sheet, Renfield found he didn't want it to end.

Ray seemed a little wobbly on stable ground, anticipating slick where there was none; new types of motion inspired special kinds of sore, ones Renfield planned to massage away later.

After he'd figured Guy out.

The eternal miscreant pulled a pre-rolled cigarette from his pocket once they were outside, carefully selecting a completely unremarkable space of building wall and leaning back against it.  There was a moment where it didn't seem to be the right fit; Guy shimmed his shoulders, took half a step to the side, and seemed to melt against that wall as though it were his own.

"Hey," he repeated, gesturing with his unlit cigarette.

"I am not one given to presumptions--" Guy snorted, and Renfield continued like it never happened, "--but I can only guess that perhaps you did something so incendiary that you were exiled from Canada."

"Nope."  Guy fished into his pocket and dragged out a handful of wrapped, mint-flavored toothpicks, offering them over with that proud smile.

Renfield didn't bother to neutralize his eyebrow, but he took them. "Ah."

Silence lingered for an awkward several moments before Ray cleared his throat, gesturing. "Want me to go get the car?"

Renfield was at something of a loss; he had no idea why Guy was here, and Guy was being (as usual) not forthcoming.  "Ah... yes, Ray, please."

Guy grinned, sudden and bright. "Let's go."

 

 

 

The answers became no more forthcoming as they drove.  It was a pleasant drive, with no particular destination; they had already eaten, so it became something of a non-guided tour of Chicago, drifting through the streets and taking in the scenery.  Apparently, Guy had already found himself a place to sleep -- no small relief in Renfield's mind -- and was merely along for the ride for... no reason that Renfield could discern.  Then again, that was the Definitive Story of Guy Laurent, in however many acts.  But Ray seemed uniquely suited to drawing words from the man, and Renfield found himself in the position of _listening_  to more than he expected to.

"--she had decided enough was enough and retired.  Nor could I blame her."  Guy saluted from the backseat, his arm wrapped around his pack, looking out at the lights of Chicago.

The new dusting of snow cast the world into an orange glow; inside, the Riviera was warm.  Renfield hadn't known that Guy's mother was a waitress.  He was not sure how the new-old knowledge made him feel.  He looked out himself, and tried to slot it all together.

Ray didn't have the same issue, apparently. "Yeah.  My Ma used to be a seamstress.  Really good one, too, but it got too hard on her hands and that."

"A blue collar life."

"Pretty much.  I mean, Pop was useless--"  There was still no way for Ray to mention his father without Renfield seeing red; more than once, as he couldn't exact revenge with his fists on a corpse for what was done to his Ray as a child, he had considered urinating on the man's _grave_ , "--but then Maria got a job, and I got a job, and Ma was able to finally cut her hours.  Then Maria went and had kids, and she cut her hours, but Frannie apparently got her job while I was undercover in Vegas and they were doin' okay.  Still are."

Renfield crossed his arms, listening, and tried to navigate through the tangled mess of emotion left where the euphoria of curling had dissipated.

The fact that he could not really even name them didn't help.

Guy was not talkative by nature, though when he did speak at length, it was usually irreverent and uninterested.  But his voice now reflected something else, something not quite definable.  A... thoughtfulness, that had only rarely shown before.  There was some reason the man was here.  Some reason that he acted like _this_ , with a quietness and carefulness and perhaps _openness_  that Renfield found almost unnerving.  There was some reason he was here, bringing with him ghosts and echoes.

Renfield was getting a little impatient with not having that particular answer.

And then Guy gave it to him, without warning, as they passed by storefronts and beautifully lit windows.

"Drew is dead."


	3. Chapter 2

#### Chapter 2

 

"Curling is a gentleman's sport, but I suppose that no one ever told Drew that."

Ray had his eyes closed, and Ren's hands were working into the muscles of his back.  Under him, the fleece blanket they'd gotten to go with the comforter felt pretty good, and he was warm.  Outside, snow had started falling.  Inside, the quiet, almost distant note of Ren's voice seemed like the sound snow makes, when it hits the ground. 

It was the first time Ren had really said anything about what Guy had said; after that bomb was dropped in the Riv, silence had fallen for eight blocks straight before Ren asked how and Guy told him.  Ray didn't chime in -- he didn't know whoever this guy was -- but he did reach over after a block or so and pet down Ren's arm, just kinda to let him know Ray was _there_ , and Ren had given him a brief little smile of gratitude, before sliding back into whatever thoughts were swirling around in his head.

Ray got the feeling he wasn't supposed to really answer that out loud, and so he didn't; just kinda turned his head against the pillow to make it clear he was listening.

But Ren was quiet again.

Apparently, whoever this guy was, he'd been a brawler; it was a bar fight, and the man had provoked some people, but none of them knew that the guy had a blood vessel about to go off like Old Faithful in his head.  The fight hadn't even really ended when the man dropped dead, scaring the piss out of the guys who had been fighting with him.  Paramedics came, he was pronounced dead not long later -- despite being dead for awhile -- and that was it.  After the autopsy revealed the hemorrhage that no one coulda known about, charges were dropped.  Life went on, except for that guy.

And except, that wasn't that.

It wasn't like Ray hadn't seen Ren go all quiet and hundred-or-more-yards with his gaze before, but it wasn't often and usually it was only when certain things hit him.  And this, apparently, was one of those certain things.

"You okay?" he asked, quietly, after another few moments; Ren's hands were still working on his back, slowly and gently, and Ray felt him start out of his thoughts.  Been awhile since that had happened, too.

"Yes, Ray."  Ren leaned down and kissed the back of Ray's neck, above where the rubbing oil started. "Just..."

"Just...?"

There was a long, long moment where he thought Ren was gonna answer, but then he opened his eyes and caught the tail end of a little headshake.  "I don't know.  But I am okay, yes."

Ray could read that signal.  Ren wanted to be able to talk, but couldn't figure out the right words.  So, hoping to give his other-half some kinda buffer, or some kinda comfort, or just time to get his thoughts together, Ray closed his eyes again and wiggled a little under those hands.  Ren picked up the massage again, and Ray groaned out quietly, half-muffled by pillow, when Ren got to work on a sore spot in his shoulder.  Those rocks they threw were heavy, and it was a deceptive kinda heavy -- it was easy to forget what kinda workout your arm was getting, until after it was over.

But hey, he'd actually gotten the thing to go almost to the button this time, and Ray was kinda _proud_ of that.  Sure, it wasn't like _basketball_ , but the kid who used to play marbles and wasn't shabby at pool could get what made curling enjoyable.  And the whole broom-stacking bit afterwards was kinda fun, too, because it introduced him to elements of Chicago he'd never even met before, over coffee or whatever else and pastries.  Plus, Ren really loved it; he almost never quit smiling from the moment he was at the club till the moment he left.  Ray was willing to live with the bruises and sore muscles for  _that_.

"Better?" Ren asked, still working the muscles of his shoulders.

"Hn," Ray answered, then figured he had to do better'n that.  He stretched, feeling the sore spots -- pleasantly sore, like work-sore back when he was a kid doing construction in the summer -- and then slowly turned onto his back. "God, yeah.  Thanks."

Ren's smile didn't make it all the way to his eyes, blocked by whatever heavy thoughts were sitting in his head. "Entirely my pleasure, Ray."  But even with the distant look, Ray knew he meant it.

The urge to kinda try to push now was welling up, but Ray wasn't sure how.  He reached up, fingering at Ren's hair, and then slid his hand back 'round the back of Ren's head, giving him a gentle tug by it and offering his own shoulder.

There was a long moment, but finally Ren moved, coming up to drape himself against Ray's side, with his head tucked into the hollow of Ray's shoulder.

Silence stretched, but for the sound of their breathing and the quiet of a world being blanketed outside in snow.  Ray wasn't really sure what he felt, except like maybe they were on the edge of something; words or actions, voice or motion.  Anticipation, breathless and uncertain.  Uneasy.

He slid his hand up into Ren's hair, cradling his head tight for a moment against his shoulder, breaking the silence. "I love you, you know that?"

Ren tightened his arm around Ray in answer. "I know.  I love you, too."

  
  


Renfield had never heard Inspector Thatcher screech before; at least, not with that note.

The effect was immediate; he bolted out from behind his desk, tripped over the rug at the entrance to his office, and ended up sprawled face down in the hallway.

He was just picking his head up when Thatcher came down the stairs, hauling...

...hauling...

Oh, God.   _Guy._

"This man apparently broke in last night and was... was sleeping in the Regal Suite."  Thatcher's face was a dangerous shade of red, and her voice was so fierce that it could blister the paint off of the walls.  Guy merely stood there, in Thatcher's uncompromising grip, in absolutely nothing but a pair of faded, hole-ridden boxers and his sunglasses. "Remove him from these grounds _immediately_."

Ray and Renfield had dropped Guy off the night before in an entirely different part of the city, secure in the knowledge that Guy did have a place to sleep.  Apparently, Guy's idea of a place to sleep was the _Canadian Consulate_.  And in a flash, Renfield could picture how the entire scene played out; Guy, hitching a ride or taking the bus.  Guy, searching around for the spare key hidden in a fake rock in the bushes.  Guy, unlocking the door as though he owned the place, without so much as a furtive glance.  Guy, locking the door behind himself, and making his way upstairs to make himself at home in the Queen's Bedroom.

Were it not for the fact Guy was his friend, Renfield would be sorely tempted to screech himself.

A fact of which Thatcher was unaware.

Renfield wasn't one to swear, but even he had a moment where he was tempted.

"I... ah.  Yes, Inspector.  Though, his... his attire..."

Thatcher made a face as she looked at Guy; Guy returned it by looking over the top of his glasses, and Renfield mentally facepalmed _hard_ for recognizing that particular expression.  "Very well.  Go gather his clothes, see to it that he dresses, and _then_ remove him from these grounds."

"Yes, sir."  Renfield got to his feet, smoothing down his uniform, and headed for the steps.  Perhaps they could continue to pretend that Guy was just an interloper, and--

"Renfield.  Breakfast?"  Guy asked, as he went past.

Renfield froze.

He could feel Thatcher's stare boring into his back with laser precision, colored with just enough incredulity to make him almost want to _laugh_ at the absurdity of this.

"Not _now_ , Guy," he answered, in a hiss, and then tried not to hunch his shoulders too terribly much as he bolted up the stairs without daring to look behind him  
  


 

There was a lady Mountie glaring at him.

Guy found he quite liked it.

She had quite the vocal range, and was very pretty, if in a very severe way when unhappy.  It reminded him of a teacher or two he'd had.  Well.  Not _had_.  If only he'd been that good back then.

"You know--"

"No."

"Madame--"

"Shut up."

"Inspector," he tried most politely, even if the look over his sunglasses was not.

She merely stared at him like something she'd scraped off her shoe.  It was all right.  Guy had overcome similar looks before.

"Surely we can--"

"You were camping in my Consulate dressed like _this_.  You-- you--"  She went impossibly more red for a moment, clenching her teeth, and breathed out.  Apparently choosing to skip the part where he'd invited her to share the bed with a little pat to the mattress.  "--know my Constable by _name_.  No."

"Do not worry for him.  He has seen me in less than this."

The Inspector stared.

Renfield came down the stairs carrying the remainder of Guy's things.

There were a few beats where they all stared at each other, Guy the only one doing so with a smile on his face, before the Inspector pierced the ballooning silence.

"Constable, is your partner _aware_ that you have a pet sleazeball?"

Renfield's mouth worked.

 _I believe it is I that has the pet Mountie_ , Guy thought, simply because he liked the symmetry of his own wit.  Even when it had turned out over the years to be entirely the opposite.  Still, watching Renfield attempt to explain things was, as always, vastly entertaining.  Guy had a brief little glow of warm memory for the many and varied times he had been present when Renfield had to do such things in Nipawin, to the often quite admirable patience of his superiors.

"I assure you, Inspector, I had no... well, obviously I didn't-- that is to say, I will see to it that--"

The Inspector eyed Guy again. "Get him out of here, Turnbull, and if I see him again..."

"Yes, sir," Renfield said, blushing.  He took Guy by the shoulder and pushed him towards what was presumably a bathroom where he could get dressed, none-too-gently.  Guy went along without any hesitation, though he couldn't resist throwing his most suave smile back towards the Inspector.  Much to her apparent chagrin.

It didn't take long, and then they were out on the streets; Renfield dutifully escorted Guy by an elbow, until they were off of Canadian property.  Guy took a moment to make certain his glasses were straight, his clothes appropriately rumpled, his hair appropriately messy and his pack secure before eying Renfield again.  It was vaguely surreal, seeing the man in red serge; Renfield had only worn it for the occasional function thrown at the Nipawin Detachment, and it made him look more severe than quite natural.

"Breakfast?" he asked again.

"No."  Renfield seemed to relax a fraction, now that he wasn't under the Inspector's gaze. "I had breakfast this morning, but there is a diner not terribly far from here if you're hungry," he said, pointing in the right direction.

Guy shrugged.  In truth, Chicago did not enamor him and so the urge to wander wide-eyed and take in the local color was largely nonexistent.  The United States in general was not very exciting, though it was very loud.  He made for a poor tourist, but Guy could not seem to find any dissatisfaction for this fact.  He had already found what he came here for, and in fact found it in better shape than he expected.

The thought of Ray Vecchio made him smile.  The memory of Renfield leaving Nipawin made him stop.

"Guy?"

It was strange, to hear that tone.  Questioning.  Concerned.  Guy schooled his expression and tightened his grip on the shoulder strap of his pack; he didn't know why he bothered with the charade, but he didn't take time to wonder about it, either, smiling wide and toothy before heading with careful nonchalance in the direction Renfield had pointed.  "I will be back for lunch."

Longfellow's ashes and a battered model cruiser kept him company after he turned the corner and could no longer feel Renfield's gaze following him.

  
  


When he thought about it, Renfield could come up with no real answers.  He cared for Drew, of course, but the man was nearly out of control.  Renfield's caring was limited, often, to that of a police officer, and more than a few times he had to deal with him in a professional capacity.  These thoughts were still swirling in his head when he did, indeed, meet Guy for lunch.

Renfield stared into his soup, but he didn't quite see it.

Guy was in much the same position.  He would cast flirtatious glances at the waitress, he would occasionally drum his fingers on the table, but it was slowly starting to occur to Renfield that it was only surface.  There was something _missing_ , something... something distorted or wrong or severed, and it colored everything.

Renfield had not been close to Drew.  He couldn't quite understand, therefore, why he felt the _loss_.  As though someone had reached into his chest and pulled out a piece of him, taking it away from him forever.

God knew, it had to be worse for Guy.  Those two were nearly inseparable.

"The service?" he chanced asking, feeling as though he were treading on thin ice.

"I lit him on fire," Guy answered, looking away from his soup and out the window, to Chicago's slush-covered streets.

It should have shocked a laugh out of him.  Made him stare disapprovingly, or disbelievingly, lay his palm to his face.  Something.  His mind pounded past several blocks, pinging off into territory he wasn't remotely prepared for, and Renfield breathed out simply to steady something, even if only the flow of oxygen.

"You were arrested."

Guy's affirmative was spoken with his eyebrows.

Renfield's imagination was skilled.  Three possible facial expressions flashed through his mind.  Which man might've been arresting officer to that utterly typical disaster in honor of a man who left similar wherever he'd gone.  If... so long as... of course, it was possible--

No.  Renfield abandoned it.

Guy was watching him again, from behind his pot-leaf sunglasses; his face wore some expression that Renfield could not immediately place, though it reminded him of a tent, a drunken night, a party thrown in his own honor that he had no real interest in.  Not quite the same.  But something else; as though Guy were apologizing for something preemptively.

Guy reached into his rucksack, and pulled out an urn; it only took Renfield a bare moment to gather that Drew was, indeed, in attendance.  For some strange reason, it almost made him want to laugh; the urn, the fact that Guy was carrying it with him.  The curling motif molded into the fired clay, in blues and yellows; it would only be when he was later able to reflect on it again that he realized that the colors were also Drew's, his hair and his eyes, a sentimentality that he would have never quite thought Guy Laurent capable of.

Even in the urge to laugh, Renfield felt something ache inside.

Guy rummaged a moment more, and then set a little model cruiser next to it, sliding it across the formica table in the pale winter light with two fingers.

Renfield recognized it instantly.

The paint job, though chipped now, was his own work.

If Guy said anything after, Renfield didn't hear it; if the city of Chicago moved and breathed around him, he couldn't have known it.

It was the last thing he remembered clearly until several hours later, when his shift was over and Ray was picking him up from the Consulate, worried and wondering what could have happened in the nine hours they were apart to reduce his other-half to a ghost.

 

  
  
  
The cruiser and the ashes remained his silent company.

It was as dark out as the city allowed, and Guy cared to see little of it anyway.  The evening was cold, and though the streets bustled with just his sort of people, it was empty.  Hitchhiking in a place like this was an adventure that had much in common with Russian roulette, and most people quite wisely ignored Guy's outstuck thumb.

Eyes seemed to slide past him; something he gave off, perhaps.  Or perhaps they didn't, and Guy merely failed to notice them.

Perhaps he wandered in a parallel world to wherever Renfield had gone, drawn into the static, right before his eyes.

When an old man with fewer teeth than Drew finally stopped for him, he asked where Guy was going.  The only answer had been a grinning shrug.  It didn't matter.  The further and more obscure, the more winding his way back would become.

As the battered old Toyota in rust red - with a broken front grille that very oddly seemed to match the driver's teeth - puttered them away, Guy dropped some Canadian coins in the ash tray as payment.

The static of the old man's voice filled what awareness Guy could muster; cigarette-roughened, deep, and suddenly recalling the particular talents of a Canadian girl he'd once known.  Less impersonal than the radio, for a lullaby.

Drifting just enough above consciousness to ensure he wouldn't be robbed, he clutched his pack tightly to his front and made the cold window his pillow.

  
  


 

Ren wasn't there.  His body was, but he wasn't; Ray spent the first two hours after picking him up trying to engage him somehow in conversation, and came up with little more than fragmented sentences that trailed off, and then Ren would blink like maybe he forgot what he had been saying only mere moments before.

It scared the hell out of Ray.

"It's not you," Ren finally said, but it was out of the blue, and while he was in the tiny kitchen washing the same dish for the third time in a row.

Ray carefully pulled the dish away to rinse it and dry it, setting it on the rack.  He knew that.  He knew it wasn't him; knew that Ren had been thoughtful but _here_ this morning, when Ray had dropped him off for work.  Wondered if it was Guy, 'cause he had disappeared, but he had no confirmation.  He knew it wasn't him, though.  It just scared him what it _could_ be, because God, Ren might sometimes go quiet, but never like this.

"What is it?"  Ray asked, softly, leaning forward and looking at Ren's face, like he might somehow find some kinda answer there.  Like maybe if Ren couldn't speak it, it would be written in those eyebrows, or flashing across his eyes.

Ren's jaw knotted and he stared off past the back wall.  Past the building.  Maybe even past Chicago.  It was such a stricken look, even well-contained, that it made Ray's heart ache and he knew right about there that he wasn't going to get an easy answer.  Maybe not even a hard answer.

"Okay," he just said, still soft, and reached out to press his still-damp hand between Ren's shoulder blades, like he could brace the man against whatever this was.  "Okay."

Ren's bottom lip twitched once, and he closed his eyes.  And then he dragged himself back into some form of functional, and got back to washing the dishes.


	4. Chapter 3

#### Chapter 3

 

It had been in a defiant, schoolboy glee that he had painted those cruisers.  The RCMP had been changing over to a primarily white design with the Force's tri-color stripes down the side, and as there was very little Turnbull could actually do to protest the change, he took his defiance out on a number of toys.

Now, he rubbed his eyes and tried to forget again.

To forget painting them at his small desk, in his rented room.  To forget his own pride in the careful work.  It seemed foolish and immature and ridiculous in retrospect.

Sleep had come difficult, though it eventually had; Ray had tugged him in and wound around him, and Renfield had curled into his heat and tried to remember how to breathe, until finally Ray's soft talking managed to break into his daze.  It was longer still, until the warmth and shared breaths lulled him to sleep.  It was patchy, and interrupted by a sense of swirling anxiety, but what he managed helped clear his mind at least so far as to give Ray a kiss, a reassurance, and to let himself sink into the man's warm arms and linger there for several minutes when it was time to go to work.  Ray left him looking worried, and with the promise of returning for lunch.  Outside, the weather was overcast and damp; a creeping and singular chill that seemed as though it could soak through his skin, into his skeleton, and remain there indefinitely.

Inside, the world seemed to move in fits; time crawling, then vanishing, only to return.

Work should have been simple.  And in most ways, it was; Thatcher regarded him with the contempt of a woman suspicious that Renfield might have a scruffy miscreant hidden about his person, ready to pop out at any moment.  But if she spoke to him, he didn't quite notice.  If it weren't for one damn toy car, it seemed he could easily forget that Guy Laurent had ever been there.

The thought made him press his lips into a thin line, staring somewhere past the wall.

The rote of a winding down consulate was a crass kind of comfort.  Like living in a snowglobe.  Perfectly preserved.  It looked almost real, until light caught the glass and seemed to remind him the scene was encased in glass and painted on.  And if he wasn't careful, something inside him would shake it, and snow would fall.

"Constable?"  Miss Simpson's tone suggested she might have asked that more than once.

Renfield shook his head, drawing in a slightly rushed breath. "Yes?"

"There's a call from Whitehorse for you.  A... Detective Kowalski?  He said it wasn't urgent, he'd call back later if you were busy."

It was a strange feeling, being surrounded by a number of people who did not know Benton Fraser, or Ray Kowalski.  Yet another tap of his finger on the snowglobe, swirling the flakes at the bottom.  Renfield didn't realize he hadn't answered her, until a sort of worried look crossed her face and she stepped further into the office.  Then, he managed to nod. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."  Her expression was still mildly concerned, but after another moment, lingering, she left.

Renfield looked at the phone for a long moment, the red light signalling the open line, and then he picked it up and answered, "Canadian Consulate, Consulat du Canada, Chicago Liaison Office.  Constable Renfield Turnbull speaking."

There was no pause on the other end of the line. _"Vecchio?!  You and_ Vecchio _?!"_

"...good morning, Detective."  He wondered what force decided it was precisely what his day needed, for a blond agitation monkey to swing from the trees overhead, via telephone line.  It was a thought that could only have been born of Ray Vecchio's sense of humor.  Renfield hid his sigh, choosing to release it in words instead.  "How can I be of assistance to you?"

_"Vecchio!  Detective Raymond Vecchio of the Chicago Police Department!"_

That time, Renfield did sigh, satisfying some odd itch in letting his own disinterest pour down the phone line in the form of disingenuity.

"Ah. A man with that name may, for the time being, currently serve with the Chicago Police Department.   How is Whitehorse, Detective?"

 _"He serves with_ something _!  I gotta hear this from Huey?  What the Hell?  I went undercover as the straightest guy you know!  He marries my wife, he_ divorces _my wife, and..._ how _?!"_

Renfield rolled his eyes at his desktop, taken to fiddling with a pencil, eraser to the desktop.  Why not?  He had little patience for this.  Not today.  And it wasn't as if he had to work with the man.

"It may be that I'm not at liberty to divulge that information."

 _"Not at-- what?  Are you kidding me?  You have any idea what kinda phone bill I'm gonna have for this call, you are_ not _\--"_

He turned the phone away from his ear, ducking his self-satisfied grin at the same desk he'd just rolled eyes at, waiting for the tirade to come to some manner of conclusion.  Humorous, considering the very phone bill the detective was complaining about.  He tapped his pencil.  Waiting until the tone hit that conclusive note before he turned it back again.

_"--are you or are you not making happy with Vecchio?!"_

It was a very old game.  But it had worked for fun and purpose before, hadn't it?  Old time's sake, perhaps.  "Well, to answer that, I would have to confirm that there was indeed a Raymond Vecchio--"

 _"Oh.  Oh. I know you are_ not _obscur-- obfus--"_  The pause entailed an extremely satisfying groan of frustration.   _"--screwin' me around, Turnbull!"_

Renfield flicked his pencil.  It rolled across the desk and off the back, onto the floor.

"It's pleasant to hear from you again.  I am doing well, since of course I assume you would ask, and I'm relieved to hear that you sound quite healthy indeed.  I am touched you would think of me during your no doubt busy adjustment to expatriation, and certainly do not mind your rather abrupt demand for personal information about my life and Ray Vecchio's sexual orientation.  And, incidentally, yes.  Ray and I.  Would you perhaps like to know the color of my underwear, the number of holes in my sock, or the contents of my diary?"

Ah.  Blessed silence.

In actuality, he had neither a diary nor holes in his sock.  In fact, he was more than proud to proclaim their relationship.  That wasn't the _point_.

"Better still, perhaps I should provide you with my mother's medical history, or the most embarrassing moment of my childhood, or--"

 _"Okay, okay!  I get it.  Sorry.  But really?_ Vecchio _?!"_  There was the barest of pauses, then Kowalski plowed on, _"Shit, that explains some things.  Hindsight and all that.  No man dresses like that and ends up one hundred percent straight."_

Renfield rubbed his eyes with the ball of his thumb and a forefinger. "I assure you, clothing is hardly an indicator of sexual orientation."

 _"Uh huh."_  Kowalski sounded amused.   _"So, all good?  Ice Queen not giving you any trouble over it?  Geez, Turnbull, that's the last person I woulda expected you to end up with.  He good to you?  I mean, Stella said that they split on okay terms, they just both knew, and I guess I can't be too pissed off at him for that, but buddy, this is the strangest thing I've heard in a long time, and I live with_ Fraser _."_

"And how are you and Constable Fraser proceeding in your relationship?" Renfield asked, with the same schooled, sunny, vapid tone he'd used earlier.

There was a pause again, then Kowalski exploded, _"Who do you think you are, asking me questions like that, Turnbull?  Is that any of your business?!  No, it is not.  That's some really personal stuff, there, pal, and who do you think you are?  You know what, I'm hanging up now.  You have a great day while you get your gossip together, and say hi to Vecchio for me."_

There was a long moment where Renfield stared incredulously, until he heard Kowalski laughing down the line as he hung up.

He cracked his neck to the side, a mix between amusement and pique, and set the phone down on the cradle.

At least, for the moment, the snow in the globe had settled.

 

 

It wasn't that he forgot that Guy was somewhere in the city.  Or what Guy carried.  But Renfield had gotten good at trying to function around large swatches of his life, some of those he was only beginning to reclaim, and at least Ray Kowalski had provided a distraction.  Something to latch onto, that wasn't... wasn't that.  Wasn't that heartache.  That loss.

That world, that he was exiled from long ago.

Even so, seeing the worried green eyes of Ray looking at him when he pulled up so they could share lunch brought it back more to the fore.  Renfield knew he must have frightened the man the night before, though he couldn't quite remember it.  For that matter, he had frightened himself when he woke up, long before his alarm, drawing in a sharp breath.  Wondering what he had forgotten, what had _happened_ the day before.  Where Guy had gone.   _Why_ , to anything, to everything.

Renfield shivered and got into the Riviera, and immediately Ray was reaching over and combing through his hair.  "You okay, Ren?"

"Yes, Ray," Renfield answered, leaning his head into the touch, even if he only half felt it.  He took a slow, deep breath, and added, "Are you?"

"Yeah."  He could feel Ray's eyes searching him, and Renfield wondered briefly when he had closed his own eyes.  He hadn't been aware of that. "Worried, but yeah.  Where you wanna go to lunch?"

"Anywhere's fine," Renfield said, making himself open his eyes and look out into the blustery world that was rapidly giving way to winter.  Gray clouds tore across the sky, and the wind on the ground stirred bits of litter.  "Detective Kowalski called me; he asked me to pass on that he said hello."

Ray's hand stilled a moment, then pet once more, before he took it back to turn the key and start the Riviera.  "Yeah?  How's the Chicago Bag Lady Fashion Contender, 1998?"

Despite himself, Renfield felt a smile cross his face. "Ah... exceedingly irritating, though he seemed in good spirits.  He... he was rather too interested in the state of our relationship.  I hope I settled his curiosity satisfactorily."

Ray snorted, and Renfield could see his smirk in his own periphery.  Still, he did not seem upset.  Something Renfield worried over only now, in retrospect; if perhaps hearing of Ray Kowalski and, by proxy, Benton Fraser could be prodding at old wounds.  "I believe he also complimented your general state of dress," he added, gentle in mock-confusion.

"Tell him hi back, and that I'm not interested."

Renfield managed a soft laugh, eyebrows up for that one.  "Ray...?"

"What?  Where I come from, a guy calls asking whether you have a boyfriend and compliments your suit, he's sniffing around."

"And this was a common mating ritual when you were younger?"

"Well, yeah.  'Cept I was the one complimenting, and the people I was callin' on weren't in suits."  Ray grinned, pulling the Riviera out and turning at the end of the block.

"And did you typically call _their_ boyfriends?"

"Hey, I didn't say the guy was smart, I just said he was sniffing."

Ray was being silly; Renfield was playing easily to it.  It was absurdly, beautifully normal.  Their life, built over the past several months, many of them not easy.  But all of them rewarding.  He could not help but have the childish hope that there would be no more talk of toy cruisers or lost friends; that they would go to Manfredi's as they often did for lunch, and then part ways only to meet again later and go driving, or go and wind themselves together in their matchbox, and leave the winter outside.

"Ren?" Ray asked, and Renfield realized they'd gone most of a block and he hadn't answered.  That worried tone returned, though softer.

"He is carrying Drew around in his rucksack," Renfield said, looking out the window, eyebrows drawn and trying to understand why even saying something so simple as that made some part of his chest constrict.  Why it made him feel chilled, even in the warmth of the Riviera. Why he even said it in the first place.  "In an urn."

Ray didn't answer immediately, leaving the silence fall for another half of a block before saying, "Musta been close."

"Nearly inseparable."  Renfield felt his jaw knot briefly, quite beyond his own control. "I cannot understand why he's _here_.  What purpose it serves."

Ray sounded confused, and Renfield could feel his glance over. "He's your friend, right?"

It hit him, somewhere.  In the same place constricted, swirling cold and soft aches, too familiar and half forgotten.  Renfield looked over at Ray, then back out at Chicago.  He thought about Guy, and something severed.  About the preemptive apology.  Guy's delight in Ray.  His openness with Ray.  The cruiser.

How he could feel a spike of anger at the man, and hurt for him, all at the same time.

"Yes."  Renfield firmly kept his bottom lip still, teeth clenching intermittently. "He is."

 

 

Renfield never reflected that Inspector Thatcher was _wrong_  to suspect that Renfield might have a miscreant about his person.

The day was winding down.  Most of Renfield's thoughts were intangible; just as he thought he could grasp one, it evaded his grip like smoke, only to drift back again on the settling draft.  The mix was was better, he supposed, than it could have been.  He wondered if Detective Kowalski - he'd once called the man Ray, and certainly had no reservations about doing so now, but it had become a matter of loyal differentiation - planned to call back.  He couldn't decide whether he'd rather have a stern word with Detective Huey about gossiping - what was the phrase?  It would be like 'pissing in the wind'? - or bake him something in thanks for the undoubtedly amusing reactions both men up north would have had.

He worried for Ray, who was worried for him.  At times he stopped to scowl at the thought of Constable Fraser, no doubt somewhere further down the same line as Detective Kowalski, even if not for that particular call; once, the scowl had turned to a smirk on the realization of just what the man had to know by now.  Some further little satisfaction.  Miss Simpson must, by now, believe him the bearer of quite the scandalous secret for walking in on that one.  

Sometimes, he just stopped, mid-word on a page or partway to picking up the phone, realizing he hadn't intended to call anyone.

He didn't know what Guy sought in him.   

Thoughts of the toy car could make him inexplicably tetchy, something he'd discovered on the way to snapping an entirely innocent pencil in half.  When the thoughts came.  Paint chipped.  It had been owned.  Used.  It must've been a feat to find, for while Renfield had detailed it with a great deal of affection, he couldn't expect the next owner to assign it such meaning.  Nor had he, at the time; he'd given them out to children.  When he landed on that thought, something twisted in his heart hard enough to crack his composure; to force himself to breathe, in lieu of tears.

Thatcher seemed to give him a wide berth, so much as he could tell.  It could have been that she'd been making noise non-stop like a slowly deflating balloon, flying around the room to bounce off the curtains and fall limply to the floor, and Renfield wouldn't have noticed.  Thought muffled everything.  

Everything but that scent, anyway.

It filtered in long before sound, and upon replaying in his mind, he thought Guy Laurent must've shut each door very quietly.

His eyes focused to a slightly battered man slung in the chair across from him, pack in his lap, blank expression on his face.  Renfield found at first he could only huff a breath in greeting.  Guy nodded; answer to a question unasked, unformed, even unthought, though he knew in that moment that it would have been.

Renfield's thumb ticked at his teacup.  Long gone tepid.  Looking into a world reflected iridescent oil on water, circles in a frame.

"What do you want, Guy?"  It was softer than he realized.  It was no accusation.  Shockingly little presumption in the question.  It was exactly what it was.

For a moment, even Guy seemed not to understand.  The answer came as two fingers, barely gestured.   _Nothing._

Renfield shook his head.  He wanted to ask if Guy was all right.  He wanted to ask what it was he _needed_ , if not wanted.  Those questions had never been a part of their language.  When he looked up again, he knew the blankness of his look didn't reach his eyes.

Suddenly, he understood those perpetual sunglasses.

"Why did you do this?"

"It was time," Guy replied, at such length that Renfield was ready to leave the question to decompose in the ether for eternity.

Renfield felt his eyes narrow, even as he felt a spike of guilt for that feeling of anger that came with Guy's answer.  Thoughts winged off at the speed of light -- _time to disrupt what I have managed to create here?  time to pick at old wounds?  deliver painful news?  time for_ **_what_ ** _?_ \-- but he couldn't make himself truly ask any of them.  Not in so many words. "I was unaware there was a _time_ ," he said, and it came out more frosty than he ever would have wanted.

Guy didn't reply to that, just sat and patted half-absently at the rucksack.  For the urn or the cruiser, Renfield did not know.  Some large part of him didn't want to.  To what possible purpose could Guy have decided that _now_ was the time?  His three-year anniversary of his transfer, perhaps?  Some self-appointed intervention to force him to face the past?  Or perhaps just to share the devastation of losing Drew.

Of losing everything.

He just let silence linger, trying to draw back, to view it objectively.  Certainly there was a great deal of change they were facing in the very near future.  A transfer.  He had put in for Customs and Excise in the Lower Mainland District; it wasn't patrol, but it was not quite desk work, either.  His experience with the United States would help, as well, and he was due to hear back whether he had been accepted to the position he had requested within the next month.  Ray was prepared to leave the States, and already had two or three different plans in place to secure permanent residency in Canada; one as a security consultant, one involving perhaps starting a business and thereby investing in Canada.  Their plans were tentative in some ways; neither of them were good at believing in a tangible future until it was in their hands.  But they were leaping together, both eyes open, into whatever it was that would come next.

Having the past return in such a manner on the eve of a very large, very life-altering move seemed... seemed...

"Why would you bring me that?" he asked, before he had time to think about it, needing to _know_.  And Renfield could not entirely ignore the hurt, or the sorrow, or the anger, or the empathy as he asked it.  For all of it.  For Guy.  For himself.  For Drew.  " _Why_ , Guy?"

Guy looked at him, and Renfield could feel those eyes, even hidden, gazing at him in equal measures of every emotion he felt himself.  It seemed to linger on forever, as though Guy were standing on the edge himself.

Then he got up, with a strange smile.  Pulling back.  Regretful.  Ragged.

Lost.

"I'm sorry, Renfield," he said, softly, and then turned and headed for the door.  He paused there without turning around, just turning his head to the side and speaking back over a shoulder.  "Au revoir, mon ami."

Renfield blinked, rapidly trying to grasp what was _happening_ ; Guy was out the door before he understood at least enough to move, and he came out from behind his desk to follow and left the consulate at a jog.  It took him too many moments, looking up and down the sidewalk, across the street, to spot Guy; it would not have shocked him if Guy had vanished like a spectre.

Not this time; Guy was walking steadily across the street and _away_.  New snow had started drifting down, melting on the sidewalks, dusting the grass.

 _"No,"_ Renfield said, sharply, almost before he had finished running. "You will not walk into my life, tell me of a dead friend, return to me my _ghosts_ and then simply... simply say _goodbye_ again."

"I should not have come here," Guy said; he didn't turn around, though he did stop.  His voice was curiously tight, though composed; a reflection, a distortion.  He dropped his head, and Renfield came around to stand in front of him, reaching out and pressing his fingertips to Guy's chest.  To stop him.  Or support him.  Something.

"You're here now."  Renfield's jaw knotted again, but it wasn't in anger.

Guy huffed a soft breath through his nose.  Something in Renfield ached.  The snow curled down around them; dusted Guy's jacket, his own serge.

"You're here now," Renfield said, more softly.

The soft hiss of the snow and the background noise of traffic passed around them.  Guy wavered faintly; Renfield could feel it through his fingertips, and it made the ache sharpen, keenly, before it faded back into something between desperation and determination, neither of which he understood himself.

He got a grip on Guy's jacket, and when Guy put up no resistance, turned him and gently lead him back toward the Consulate.


	5. Chapter 4

#### Chapter 4

 

Guy Laurent slept for two days.

The bedsit wasn't even large enough for Renfield and Ray; Renfield was certain that the main reason they managed so well was because they spent a great deal of time in bed, and the proximity there was more welcome than not.  Having three grown men in it was well beyond its original purpose, and required them to shuffle furniture, clothing and patterns, simply to make enough room.

But even so.

Renfield donated his bedroll and bedding; Ray shared one of his pillows, the one he sometimes used to protect his repeatedly wounded left side.  Ray had asked few questions, but Renfield could see them in his eyes; could see him observing, could see him exercising the very tools that made him an excellent detective.  Guy put up little resistance; something that worried Renfield far deeper than he could admit to.  Once they had a temporary place of rest, Guy simply rolled his coat up next to him, set his rucksack beside it, and did not move beyond that. He slept on the other side of Ray, on the floor beside the bed, and there were times when Renfield caught Ray peering at him, a curious mix of keen detective interest and soft empathy.

The first night, Guy had seemed almost frightfully still, but the warmth of three sets of lungs in that small apartment was notable, enough to reassure him that his friend was indeed alive.  It seemed somehow entirely too possible, the thought that Guy could simply lay down, drift away, and join Drew in whatever afterlife accepted short-fused brawlers.  To just go out like a light.  

Renfield didn't sleep well, despite the stillness, the warmth of Ray around him, and the strange sense of rightness in keeping his friend in his own domain.  The most he could remember of the day following was mismatched ache, swirling on the draft, and the suspicion with which Inspector Thatcher treated the Queen's bedroom.  Ray stopped back at the bedsit during the day, just to check on Guy, but if the man woke even so much as to use the bathroom, Ray was none the wiser.

The second night fell with Ray watching them both, as though even in sleep Guy could give over another piece to the puzzle.  They didn't talk while they were here, aside soft, short exchanges.  Eventually, Renfield slept.  Not well, but he slept, and when he heard it, his eyes opened easily.

Ray was looking back at him.

The hitched breath came from across the room, not beside him.  A rustle.  Another hitch.

A nightmare.

Green eyes that were charcoal in the dark searched his face.  Ray's eyebrows drew together in what Renfield knew was all too knowing empathy.  Renfield looked back.  Stroked Ray's back, as though he were comforting _him_.

_"Sssh."_

Renfield could hear Guy rolling over, rustling the cover.  Releasing a note of pain that should not have been so soft for how much it conveyed.  

Ray pulled him in a little tighter.  Renfield shut his eyes.

"Ssh..."  It was never a sound Renfield pictured making for Guy.

Abruptly, Guy went quiet.  Renfield didn't open his eyes to raise an eyebrow; listening for each now-even breath.

"No," Guy said then, as clearly and lucidly as the light of day.  It was matter-of-fact.  Calm, as though responding to an offer of a ride.

It also made Renfield jerk into Ray's hold, tightening around him for the motion, inexplicable adrenaline firing through him.

Guy's breath returned to an even rise and fall.  He was still asleep.

  


 

Work the next day saw even Thatcher checking on him; there was a stillness that had come over himself, too.  Her attempt had been awkward, poorly executed, and dismissed with his genuine thanks.  The toy car was slowly assimilated into his being; that wasn't a good thing.  He itched around it.  But what could he do, when the man with the answer was seemingly comatose?

Renfield felt his own exhaustion keenly.  The cold on the air seemed to fit.  Even now he spoke quietly, and did not know why he did.

When he'd come home, Guy had been awake.  Just like that.  Hair wet and left uncombed, clothes even changed, though Renfield thought that must've been his only spare set.  Watching the small television that Ray had bought, expressionless, but none the worse for wear as far as Renfield could tell.  He was thinner now than he had been, without his jacket to give the impression of weight he used to carry.  Renfield was not sure why he noted that.

There wasn't any kind of conversation.  Guy had said his name.  Renfield had returned the sentiment.  Tentative on both sides, a word that he never would have used to describe anything Guy Laurent did before.  

Ray left them to bring back food; Renfield had settled beside his friend, and they'd watched the flip of channels aimlessly for a little while before Guy settled on a channel.  Ray had paid for cable service, presumably so he might have better access to sports.  The upshot, at least, was that Renfield was able to watch Newsworld International at home, as well as at the Consulate.  There was not nearly as much curling coverage as there had been in Canada, but it was better than nothing.

The television, though, was mostly background noise on any given night.  Moreso on this night.

"You have not told him."  It was quiet, after some indeterminate period of time where they watched mindlessly.

Renfield felt a lesser cousin to the pique he had felt before; almost dull, covered with weariness.  He was, honestly, _tired_ of thinking about it; even when he did his best to avoid thinking about it, it lurked in his mind.  "I've told him some."  But it never seemed the right time to tell Ray more.  If it could even be told.  Renfield did not like going near that time in his life.  Going near the loss, the disorientation.  "If it becomes relevant, I'll tell him more," he added, in a manner he hoped would put it to bed.  It wasn't Guy's concern, anyway.

Guy didn't press further.  Just watched the screen, blank and weary despite his quite extended sleep.

Mercifully, Ray returned carrying pizza.  He stopped just inside the door, then kicked it closed with the heel of his shoe and the rustle of overcoat. "Good thing I got here," he said, after a moment where he was clearly observing them, "before someone called the undertaker."

Guy snorted a soft laugh, and it took Renfield a moment to catch up: _It's quieter than a tomb in here._  He managed a small smile, standing to take the pizza and give Ray a soft kiss on the mouth. "Yes, Ray."

Ray let him have it, searching his face for a moment.  Then he peeled off his coat and scarf, and started unbuttoning his suit jacket, rolling up his shirtsleeves and taking Renfield's seat on the bed.  When Renfield came back, there was still quiet, but Ray was rubbing Guy's back, casual slow circles up by his shoulder-blades.  Guy was resting his elbows on his knees, and the set of his mouth was somehow painful to look at; as though the kindness itself was almost too much for Guy to bear.

Emotion splintered on it, not all of them making sense.  Renfield wasn't certain why he wanted to delicately remove Ray's hand from Guy's back; he wanted more to place his hand there with it, and even more to look away out of respect.   Option D.  He settled on the floor, like a child, legs crossed and plates of pizza laid in his lap, and met Ray's eyes. Ray inclined his head toward Guy, briefly, eyebrows going up.  Renfield didn't know what he was asking.  Or suggesting.  

He handed Guy his pizza, and was surprised to see the man shift in discomfort.  Faint, barely notable, but there.  After a moment, Guy stood.

"Goin' somewhere?" Ray asked, looking up at the man, eyebrows up.  It was a deceptively casual expression, but Renfield could see the concern and scrutiny behind it.  He was certain Guy could, too.

"A walk," Guy said, looking at Renfield from behind his glasses for a moment.  Then he did something that surprised Renfield; he looked back at Ray with a gentle, if small, smile.  Warm, and... genuine.  It made Renfield's heart twist again, a mix of pain and warmth of his own. "I will return," Guy said, then retrieved his coat.  It looked as though he was intending to perhaps take the pizza with him.

Renfield nearly stood, prepared to intervene, but Guy gave him a purposeful look again, and left his rucksack where it was, before carefully threading his way to the door and quietly out into the evening.

It was several beats and the retreat of footsteps, before Ray spoke, "Think it's time to tell me what this is about?"

 _No,_ Renfield thought, aching.  He looked at Ray, who was waiting with his eyes serious and patient, and apparently _relevant_ was now because he made himself say, "Yes."

 

 

"I met Guy at Depot."

It took a long time, to begin speaking again.  Near an hour and tea; it took Renfield pacing the small open space of his floor, compulsively running his hands back through his hair, over and over again.  It took pacing, and then stopping just to breathe, and all the while he was intensely aware of Ray's presence.  He felt trapped, within himself and within these walls, and then he understood why Guy had left, even temporarily.  So that he could breathe and walk.  So much he was learning about his own friend, and he had not even begun to truly grasp at that, before there was _this_.

"He had, apparently, joined the Force on a bet.  Needless to say, he did not last long."  Not long enough to see what happened to Reyes, what happened with Hawthorne.  What happened to Renfield.  "I am uncertain where he went after he dropped out, but when... when I was given my assignment..."

Ray's face tightened, and Renfield realized it must have been in reaction to something upon his own.

Everything in him wanted to run.  Grab his Ray and get into the Riviera and drive, as far and fast as they could, to someplace better.  As if he could outrun it all.

"I was assigned to a small town in Saskatchewan.  Nipawin."  Ray had heard the town's name once, and it was no easier to say it now.  Renfield paused again to breathe.  "Guy appeared my very first night, and... and... and quite nearly had my alarm clock bounced off of his head, when he threw rocks at my window to gain my attention."

Ray must've been looking at him, but Renfield could only feel it, not see.  He found his eyes squeezed shut.  

"He hugged me." The statement came on pacing, and the crossing of his own arms couldn't have helped the impossibility of breath, but he did it anyway, as though he could catch it and push it all back in before Ray could hear the words.  "At the front door.  He had... he said he had... nothing better to do."  It was frightening how little Renfield believed that, now.

He opened his eyes to find that Ray didn't either.

His hands went back into his hair.  And stayed there.  "He... I..."

It wanted to come out of order; so much as it wanted to come at all, which it didn't.  No more came for some time.

"Breathe, honey," Ray finally said, hushed as though daring to speak in the silence of church, and it was only then Renfield realized his body was begging him to breathe in.  He breathed, enough to feel the ache, enough to peel his hands from his hair to still the motion Ray made toward him.  It wasn't that Ray wasn't welcome.  He just... just couldn't be touched through this.

The door and the Riviera and the engine noise was suddenly painfully tempting.  It was foolish to think that he could walk over the hole in his life without falling through the tissue paper he'd used to repair it.

"I was... I was trained."  His voice was thready.  "The... it was... it was not known, what to make of him, my friendship, but he was dealt with when his havoc boiled over into public nuisance.  I've come to realize he knew Andrew long before... before Nipawin.  I thought he must have been a resident, at the time.  We... we formed a curling rink.  With... with Mark."  Saying that name had gotten no less contemptuous with the passage of time.  "I... it was... even after..." ...and even after Mark, there was the sky, and the town and... and... his cruiser, and he was _bravo four-two-oh_ , and he...

...he didn't even realize he was crying, until Ray was gently taking his hands, balled up in his own hair; until the words started making it in  -- _"Ren, shh, I've got you, c'mon, lemme hold you awhile."_ \-- and he realized that not only was he crying, but Ray had been speaking for some time, and he wanted to say that it didn't matter, it was not _important_ , it was over and gone, and that there was no good that could come from _feeling like this_ , no good whatsoever, but what came out was

_"I loved it there,"_

and the next breath in was a desperate drag, breaking open his chest, and the next breath out was a sob.

  


 

Ray fell asleep with a Mountie in his arms, and tears drying on his shoulder.

Didn't even bother taking his shirt off, just got Ren tucked up tight against his side, and held on.  Inside his own head, he was trying to put together the puzzle.  Outside, though, he just held on and petted Ren's hair and tried to be the best anchor he could be.  Because God, not a whole lot hurt like seeing Ren crack up.  If he woulda known, he might have put off asking.  Until later.  Until when Ren was ready to say something.  Volunteer something.  But it hurt, watching him and Guy circle around each other, and it hurt watching Ren go thousand-yard stare, and it hurt not being able to make that better.  He thought maybe if he knew, he could do something.

Ray was starting to realize just how much he didn't know.  Like whatever the gap was, between being hounded all the way through Depot, and Chicago.  It had a name; he'd heard it before.  But aside some antics by Guy, who was older than he expected in the flesh, and a lot more damaged than the stories ever made him out to be, that was it.  It was a town in Saskatchewan.  Ren didn't talk about it.

Ray had his own gap.  It was called Las Vegas, and he hadn't been himself, but he got to keep all the nightmares anyway.

He fell asleep with a Mountie in his arms, and woke up when Guy let himself back in, his own instincts jumping to high alert for an attack that he still sometimes expected to come.  They didn't say anything, though; Guy just looked at him, then at Ren, then made his way slowly over to where he'd been sleeping, laid down, and that was it.

Far as he knew, Guy went to sleep.  Ray didn't have an easy time getting back there, rush ebbing away.  But he eventually did, used to a couple of sets of breathing in the room by now.

Until he woke up to Ren's soft notes sometime later.

He was still rough-voiced from crying, but he whispered, and no wonder Ray didn't notice before.  It wasn't anything he hadn't fallen asleep _to_ at some point.  Took him a minute to realize he was talking to Guy, his back to Ray where Ray was pressed all along him now.  Took him another to realize they'd probably been talking a while.

Like maybe they both remembered that they were friends, somewhere between the space of footfalls on the street and tears.

"... _and he smudged those old overalls with the dirt from off his hands, dust of the days he'd make an honest livin' on this land_..."

Guy laughed, just as soft.  "That was you?"

"Indeed."

"You have hidden talents, Renfield.  More?"

"No.  It was terrible.  But my sister was proud."

They fell quiet for a little while, and Ray felt Ren nodding against the pillow.

"She is pregnant."  Ray didn't stuff down his smile at that, even if he hadn't exactly notified anybody he was awake.

Guy actually laughed, and there was a thunk that suggested he probably put his head back to the wall.

"Twins.  Another set."

"She has had one already?"

"No.  My... my brothers are twins.  My mother, too."

"So many Turnbulls.  She should name one for me."

Ren didn't bother scolding him on that one, but Ray could feel the eye-roll, and Guy chuckled, sighing with it.  

"Yeah, you shoulda seen Uncle Ren mooning over that one," Ray added in, sleepily, snuggling in on his Mountie.  It wasn't even a shock to Ren that he was awake; didn't feel his Mountie jump or go stiff or anything like that.  Ren just tipped his head back and breathed a whisper of a laugh, a little ragged, but it was good.  It was really good.

"Certainly not ass out the window, however."

Guy's laugh was musical; the same one Ray got before, seemingly just because he existed, and you know, Ray figured that must've been the first time in whatever short forever they'd known each other that he'd have heard Ren cuss.  

They went quiet again, and stayed that way; Ray tightened around Ren's back, kissing the back of his head.  Something felt a little better in his chest, when Ren snuggled back to him and breathed out almost normally.

He must've slept, but he didn't know how long, before he faded back in on talking again.  Ray was somewhere between feeling like he was watching a whole new leaf turned over for them and watching an old language being spoken that he didn't quite get.

It wasn't a bad way to wake up again, not at all.  It was early.  Too damn early, so Ren probably hadn't slept much after that, but Ray found he didn't mind the wake-up call or even that short strip of land on the bed where Ren had been taken up by the splay of his own hand.  He cracked his eyes open to see Ren and Guy on the floor, cross-legged like a couple of little boys, watching TV.  Ren's back prim and straight, Guy's slouched, and it was easy to picture what they would have looked like as little kids, chattering softly by the dim light of dawn and the flicker of sports scores from the great white North.  From what he got of Ren's childhood, the whole sleepover with other kids thing hadn't happened much if at all, so maybe it was better late than never.

"No.  Only a spectator, until recently."

"Waste of talent."

"Thank you."  Ray could see Ren's head duck a little, and knew the smile he had to be wearing.  "Ray has quite a bit of natural talent himself.  Quite the opposite of the last man to fill his working position, who declared the sport glorified housework."

"He is dead now?"

"No.  Living in Whitehorse--"

"Same thing."

"--but I cannot say I didn't threaten something in that arena."

"Wouldn't work."  Ray rubbed his face on the pillow, eyes closed again, to stick in on that conversation.  "You gotta find a bag lady's bag, rip it up and burn the pieces, otherwise he'll just keep coming back from the dead."

"I like you," Guy said very simply.  "'Bag lady'?"

"Ray and this gentleman have certain disagreements in the realm of fashion."

"Hey, hey, hey.  I don't care what he wears on his own time.  He was being _me_."

"I have been many things and known many people, but I have always been me and they have always been them.  Nothing here quite makes sense, does it?"

Ray was sure Guy's question was meant to be funny, but the result was silence.  Ray opened his eyes.  Ren's head was ducked.

"No.  Not really."  It didn't sound like the hit Ray was expecting, it sounded kind of affectionate, if a little sad.  Ray watched Guy give his boyfriend a shoulder-pat.  Not a lot more than that.  Perfectly calibrated not to get the Mountie jumping or pulling off.  Ray was starting to get that Guy could be a little bit of an artist.

"So," Ray said, getting up with a little bit of a groan, a lot less than all the aches should account for, but hey.  "Who wants slightly singed fried eggs?"

 

 

 

Ray's eggs didn't turn out too bad.  

He'd stopped thinking of Ren as a kid sometime back, but it threatened to come back into usage, watching those two eating slightly oily eggs and alternating staring at the screen and talking quietly like they had a secret.  Canadian TV bonding time.

His plate was on the bed, and in between the silence he was listening to 'em riff on an old bonspiel, which was actually pretty cool to listen to.  Drew apparently had problems keeping equipment, on account of a habit for breaking it off on something when he wasn't happy with how the game went.

It was somewhere in the recounting of this Andrew guy declaring that Ren was so polite he wouldn't swear even if you shoved a brush someplace Ray only ever shoved gentler things that the news came on.

And hey, he didn't blame them for perking up to listen.  It was kind of cool, seeing such a normal window into the North.  Sometimes he still listened out for Florida news on TV.  Or Nevada.  Just habit.  Place names he recognized, even some of 'em he didn't want to remember, maybe it was natural to still want that kind of commonality you got with everyone else that lived in your section of the planet through recognizing yourselves in the sports teams you knew even when you didn't have anything else.  The ability to go 'oh, man' or 'hey, I remember that place!' when you hear about it on the news was maybe a little childish, but he did it, too.

But he was busy watching 'em, and wasn't exactly listening, so when Ren's eyebrows drew together, Ray actually listened.

"... _northeast Saskatchewan, during an apparent traffic stop. The RCMP are confirming that a sergeant has been shot, but are not releasing any information as to his condition_..."

Ah, God.  Ray watched Ren's jaw knot, 'cause they all felt that, when another cop got shot.  But that wasn't what stood his hair on end.

It was watching Guy blanch and shove those sunglasses up into his hair.

Thirty seconds later, the phone started ringing.


	6. Chapter 5

#### Chapter 5

 

It was the first time he had heard Staff Sergeant Severn's voice since leaving Nipawin, three years earlier.

Anxiety crept in at the newscast, downright heart-pounding adrenaline hit when Guy shoved his glasses up with something horrible dawning in his eyes; there was a jolt of terror in going to answer his own phone, but when he heard Severn's voice simply say, "Renfield," all he could answer was, _"No."_

As though he could shove reality behind that flat denial.

While he was telling Guy of his country music writing success, over two thousand kilometers away, someone shot Mike Chase.

Renfield didn't hear most of what came next; Ray had to take the phone.  The next thing he became remotely aware of was staring at Guy, and Guy staring back, and the horror hanging in the air between them, and Ray's calm voice getting information.

Someone shot Mike Chase.

 _"Why?"_ Renfield asked, a small sound.  He did not even direct it.

Guy just shook his head, breaking their gaze and turning away.

The knock on the door did not even register initially; it came on a delay and increasing loudness, and then Guy twitched and walked out of the kitchen to open it, something in the set of his shoulders suggesting anger, until it slipped away and he stepped out of the way to allow Inspector Thatcher through.  Her hair unbrushed.  No makeup.

Ray gave her a grim kind of upnod, still on the phone, watching her warily even as he stayed on the line.  Even she couldn't contain a moment's pained look for the sight of Renfield on the floor, where he hadn't noticed he'd fallen, back to a wall.  The look faded from pained to the incredulity of where she stood and the men who occupied the space, until it became the nothingness of duty.  

Thatcher crouched in front of him.  Clearly aware they already knew, but whatever she'd intended to say, she was going to anyway.

Renfield dug his heels into the floor, pressing back tightly to the wall, fingernails digging into his own chest. He couldn't remember when he'd gone to the floor.

"I received the call a little while ago.  Last night--"

"No."

"--Sergeant Chase was shot during what they assume to have been a traffic stop--"

He shook his head, making another sound.  It was no lament.  It was just fact.

"--he sustained three gunshot wounds and was taken in for surgery."

He felt Ray, more than saw him, as he crouched beside him.  It was poor counterpoint for the rolling cold chills and aching disbelief, but it was something.

Thatcher looked down, briefly, before looking back up, mouth pressed into a line before she said, "I'm sorry, Turnbull."

"He is not dead."  His voice was rough.  A flat refusal to the universe, to God, to whatever power it was that could allow such a thing to happen.  He met her eyes for the barest moment, and he could see the eye contact jar her; knew her well enough to pick it out underneath the officer's imperative detachment.

"No," she answered, though there was something in her tone that was not quite so certain.  As if she was saying _not yet_.  Even that bare confirmation, though, was enough to unlock something in him and Renfield could not control the shivering that started.  No.  Not yet.

Not him.  Not like that.

"Listen, is there any way we can get him north?" Ray asked, and Renfield felt a sob threaten in his throat.  "I know he doesn't have any vacation time, but--"

"I can make arrangements," Thatcher said, looking at Ray, and it was strange to see them in such a moment of simpatico.  "If you move quickly, we can have him in Saskatchewan by this evening."

"We can do that."

"Take me to the bank," Guy said, interrupting the conversation for the first time; it was a quiet tone, but its weight made up for it.  "I will handle the travel expenses."

  
  


 

Numbness warred with disbelief with horror with _I should have said something_ , and Guy let it roll over him like ocean waves as he peered into the gray morning.

Renfield and Ray were currently packing and calling airlines.  Well.  Ray was calling airlines.  Renfield seemed more to scramble desperately to handle yet another blow to whatever it was he had managed to create for himself here.  As such, Guy found himself in the company of a lovely female Mountie and could not even summon enough heart to make a pass at her.  Pity.  Without her makeup, her hair slightly wild, she seemed somehow all the more beautiful to him.  Her severity was only hinted at; she seemed to have her own disbelief and more vague horror to deal with, in addition to theirs.  Perhaps for the fact that there was a Mountie gunned down in the night.  Perhaps, simply, because she was no doubt seeing a side of her constable she had never seen before.  Perhaps both.  It made for a quiet ride.

The banks did not open until nine, and that left them a little time to sit outside of the stately exterior.  The inspector had displayed a considerable amount of visual skepticism to Guy's declaration.  He would have been amused, had it not been for the fact that it was exactly the sort of reaction he counted upon.

He rarely touched that money.  When he did, it was most often in the service of whatever cause he deemed good.  Few causes were moreso than this.

It struck him as ironic, in a way, that he could no more answer _why?_ than Renfield could.  Despite having walked among far lower elements of humanity, even many of them who hated police officers.  But none of them had ever shot one.  None of them had ever gunned one down.  The mere thought sat wrong to Guy.  But that it was Chase, even more.  Guy did not know the man well, but he knew him well enough to know that he was a _good_ man; that it seemed he had, without hesitation and with steady decency, managed to undo a large part of what it was that Depot had done to Renfield.  That alone was enough for Guy to feel just how wrong this was.

The horror could have only been deeper had it been Renfield Turnbull himself.

Perhaps in some ways, it was.  Whatever power had decided to bring all of fate to bear upon his friend had picked a hell of a fucking time to do it.

Guy did not want to think of his own part in that.

That he had brought the news of Drew.  That he had brought the model of Renfield's old cruiser.  That he had looked Chase in the eyes, and saw something was not right, and couldn't make himself speak past his own emotional wreckage.  Perhaps he could have tipped the tide, or the minutes; perhaps ten in either direction would not have seen that man have holes blown into him.

Guy did not feel guilt often or lightly.

Ray had more information than even the inspector, from the former Staff Sergeant.  That it was three bullets, and all three gut shots, two of which punched through his back.  That Chase was in Nipawin, having been deemed too unstable even for air transport to Regina.  That they flew in a trauma surgeon and cross-typed blood and blood products, all of which had just arrived not long before this call.  That he was, at least, still alive.  If barely.  Guy could see all of the things Ray could not speak aloud, too: Critically wounded, still bleeding, still in the OR.  Not expected to survive.

Somewhere in the great nation of Canada, there were people Guy Laurent would murder with his own two hands.

He realized somewhere in the haze that the exceptionally young Inspector was trying not to observe him.  Something in Guy twisted around the guilt at his heart and held onto it as he shifted to attend to her clear discomfort.  "My apologies for disturbing you before," he said softly.

The unexpected statement made her jump a little, something she covered for a with a smooth down of her seatbelt before unhooking it.  Guy would have smirked; one less thing to trap her in the car with him.  She shook her head, dismissal of it without forgiveness, and it could have been that Guy understood.

Thatcher checked her watch.

Abruptly Guy got out of the car, the door mechanism somehow loud in the silence and the morning, and merely rested himself against the hood.  If Thatcher objected, she didn't say so.  The woman was uncomfortable with him.  He couldn't blame her, given the very perception of himself that he cultivated that morning in the consulate.  Guy hadn't the notion to disarm her discomfort, so he would be silent instead.

He didn't miss her look as though she'd missed some half-hearted opportunity to help, but he ignored it.

When the bank opened, the teller looked at him as though he'd come to escape in it from the cold, and Guy expected any moment to be directed to the nearest shelter.  Fortunately, his accountant was quite accessible -- as well he should be -- and it was sorted quickly and quietly.  The teller’s attitude vastly changed when Guy's accounts came up, and the ID he possessed failed to look utterly fake; vouched for by the accountant, the man cleared his throat softly, and asked Guy what denomination he wanted his bills in.

Funny how that happened.

Thatcher was poorly suited to containing surprise.  Guy felt more annoyance for the easy perception of him than he was usually possessed to, especially given that he often counted on them.  He glanced at her from over his glasses, frowning.  "I assure you, I didn't rob it."

"Are you always so abrasive with people who offer you rides?"

The correction was righteously delivered, with just enough derision to play upon guilt he didn't usually feel.  Guy reflected that Renfield's time under her command must have been disastrous.

"No," he replied eventually.  He wanted to argue with her.  To smile easily and watch the frustration build before he would soothe it.  He slipped fingers into one of several envelopes and offered her one of the smooth bills.  "For petrol."

Ah.  He had offended her again.  Thatcher stared at it in surprised contempt, and Guy dropped his hand, deciding perhaps that he wasn't destined for success today.  She drove them out of the parking lot, still scowling.  He hadn't intended to insult her.  Guy laid his head to the window, no doubt leaving a print of his forehead, and shut his eyes for a few minutes.

It should be enough.  Funds in American and Canadian.  The Americans would be celebrating their Thanksgiving this week, so travel would no doubt be a nightmare, but unlikely travel was something Guy was well used to.   He could feel her looking at him, at the traffic light.  Her words came very grudgingly, at first, as though she had a generally uneasy relationship with the concept of gentleness.

"You are... close to the man who was shot?"

Guy shrugged.  More solemn a gesture than it should be capable of.  Close, no, but he supposed that when you wore a man’s handcuffs more than once, there could be no denying you were involved in some manner.

"I'm sorry."

He turned his head, at least enough to look at her through the gap between his sunglasses and cheek.  The light turned, and she drove.  It was some time before he replied; indecision as to whether he should even attempt to open his mouth was not something he was used to.

"Men... people like him are the best among you.  We should all be sorry."  Guy nodded.  "Thank you."

  


 

 

O'Hare was packed.  But it was the best shot they had; American Airlines had one seat left for Winnipeg, where there was a connecting flight to Regina, and from Regina, it was only about a four and a half hour drive to Nipawin.  It was the best chance they had, and Ray tore the Riv through the streets, but in the end, he had to leave Ren and Guy both.  Not even able to pull up to the terminal, for the rush.

"I'll be up fast as I can," he said again, and his heart ached.  A steady ache, and under that ache was _fear_ , and over that ache was a calm Ray was kinda surprised he was even capable of right now.  "Just gotta work things out with Welsh, if I can.  Somethin'.  I'm this close to getting my pension."

"I know, Ray."  Ren was still a mess, but he was a more determined, composed mess.  As he'd packed -- including his duty uniforms -- a grim look had come over him and then he wanted to know every single detail of what Severn had told Ray.  And Ray gave it.  Hated seeing the cold fear in Ren's eyes, at some of the gory details, but he gave it.  He just hoped he wasn't delivering his other half to the airport so he could get there for a _funeral_.  It might have been the first time in his life where Ray was mentally cajoling and pleading to God for a cop he _didn't_ know.

The fact they could get the call at just after six in the morning and mobilize to the airport by ten-thirty woulda been more impressive, if it wasn't for the fact that every minute felt like it coulda been the last.

"I love you," Ren said, jaw knotted, and leaned across the seat to steal a fierce, too brief kiss.

"Love you, too," Ray said, once it was broken, and fighting against the way that ache in his chest crept up into his throat.

Guy was already out, hauling his knapsack.  "If I don’t get my own seat, I'll find you."

"You do that."  Ray wanted to say, _Take care of him if you do._

Maybe Guy already knew.  He looked over his glasses at Ray, then headed for the terminal.  And after an aching, _lonely_ look that lingered, Ren got out of the Riv and followed.

Ray hated how that door sounded closing.

 

 

 

Airports housed the distilled nature of humanity.  It was often thought that the true test of a man was when he was under pressure, under fire, or unobserved.  Those were all fine windows into a soul.  But there was something truly unique in revealing just what someone faced with a dilemma would do after hours of misery at the hands of faceless corporations, waiting to be packed into metal tubes, waiting to be unpacked, just to be packed again.  It wore at a person, after a while.  Empathy had a way of bleeding away, which might've explained the way airports always seemed to be wide and open, slightly too cold, but still stifling.

The ticket counter had proclaimed him - in polite corporate-speak, of course - shit out of luck.  What they failed to glean was that Guy Laurent had never in his life been entirely out of luck.

The flight attendants waiting in this particular terminal did not know what to make of Guy, standing on a seat, holding up money.  This was a positive thing, for as long as they didn't know what to make of him, they were less likely to try and stop him.  He knew Renfield would've been painfully embarrassed with his conduct, in another life, but not now.  Guy's offer had been very simple.

"Hello.  I will pay triple for a seat upon this flight."

The stares had been precisely as disbelieving as such a statement should inspire, but there was no answer.

"Quadruple, if you insist."

Travellers started to whisper, and some of them began to giggle, but he was manifestly serious.  A group of what appeared to be teenagers eyed him with the kind of mocking interest that he could have turned into a lay; a pair of elderly couples seemed to be discussing his appearance in hushed voices; a small child was pointing at him and blowing a raspberry, something his mother couldn't seem to shush; a set of three young blonds whispered to one another, pointing from their seats not far from the one he stood in.  Others tried to ignore the spectacle.  He watched them all, peeking up over his sunglasses as he scanned the room.  He stood in the poor cushioning of the slightly curved seat, waving a bundle of cash, and he finally sighed.

"It is very important I get on this flight.  I will pay five times your ticket price.  More than enough for a hotel stay, if you cannot book another."

Guy lingered on the blonds, varying ages, who appeared to be related.  Just watched them.  It was the female among them who seemed to be more sharply considering it; she met his eye, as her companions attempted to dissuade her, looking unhappy.

Guy put up an eyebrow.

The woman smiled back.

He stepped off the seat with all the grace he possessed before Andrew Longfellow had died, stepping up to her and earning himself the glare from what he was going to guess were her brothers.

"Feeling adventurous, madame?"

"I'll do it," she said at length, mischief about her tone that any other day would have seen him stripping her thread by thread before the end of the night.  

"You can't stay out here on your own, Paula, Dad's expecting all of us--"

"The man's in need, Daniel."  She looked painfully perky about it; a type of defiance Guy could respect.  She produced her ticket from her purse, offering it out notched between two fingers.  

He took it from her, holding it up, offering her an easy smile.  It slid into his pocket, and from out of the same came one of his envelopes of cash.  She watched him as though daring him to follow through with the expensive offer, somewhere between feigned innocence and flirtatiousness, and Guy barely noted that he felt nothing.  Her brothers glared at him, probably all too aware they were being ignored.

Whatever she had paid for her ticket at booking, Guy counted out far more than five times the amount.  Hm.  Yes.  That should do.

All eyes were on them, and even the raspberry emanating from the small child had ceased.  He held up the folded cash, holding her gaze.  When she stood to take it, he stepped easily into her space.  Taking her hand, the money held between them where they were momentarily linked.

Guy felt her breath catch.

"Promise me," he whispered into her ear, breathing over it as the one apparently called Daniel fumed silently.  It would only be a matter of time before that one defended his sister's honor - the other either forward-thinkingly minding his own business, or displaying his cowardice - and Guy was counting the seconds.  "That you will take a limousine, book a fine room, drink something you never have, and do something... inadvisable.  Hm?"

He held her hand between them, putting her palm up so that she could look at what he'd given her.  A set of flecked brown eyes went wide.

That time, Guy did feel something.

His eyebrows quirked.  "Paula?"

"I promise," she finally whispered, closing her fingers around the money.  "Hey, why--"

Guy had already slipped away from her, answering only with a wink over his glasses.

 

 

 

The mild-mannered gentleman who was already in the seat beside of Renfield's when he boarded had clearly seen something wrong with him.  He didn't look much younger than Renfield himself, but he'd offered a smile, almost child-like in seeming to hope he'd get one back.  Renfield couldn't remember his name, once it was done.  Just that he'd had blue eyes and a tone as though he was fully prepared, even before takeoff, to somehow assist the man that had come to randomly sit beside him on a plane.

Guy had swapped seats with him easily.  In truth, the man looked relieved to discover Renfield wasn't travelling alone; more so that there was, indeed, something tangible he could do to help.

So the blue-eyed stranger sat a few rows away, and Renfield had come to stare out the window, dully trying to remember the man's name.  It was simpler than thinking about how his state must be written all over him.  Or about any of the things that had landed him in this state in the first place.  After a few moments, and listening to Guy attempt to procure alcohol from the attendant on a flight that didn't offer it, he asked, "Where did you get it?"

Guy did not answer immediately.  It was only after Renfield looked over that he said, "Inheritance.  Among other ventures.  All legal, I assure you."

"I will pay it back."

"Unnecessary."

"Even so."

Guy shook his head, but Renfield only caught the beginnings, before his head was turned again to the window.  At least now that the initial adrenaline had worn off, a strange feeling of exhaustion had settled in.  An improvement, if only because it tamed, though didn't banish, the gnawing feeling of desperation beneath his breastbone.  He was hurtling towards Nipawin, via Winnipeg and Regina, and if he thought too much about it, he would scream.  To have to face it again, like this.  This quickly.  This painfully.  Moreso, to have to do it because...

How long did he lay on the road?  Before they reached him?  How long did he lay there _alone_?

Renfield felt his own lip curl, and his heartache renewed itself in a bright, blinding flash before retreating again.

The plane was far too small to contain the explosion of motion he felt boiling up inside of himself, but he managed to contain it.  How, he would never guess.  Everything in him wanted to pace.  His mind reeled at a speed faster than they were hurtling at; running itself in circles, stumbling occasionally to stare briefly at one piece of this nightmare, before reeling off to stare at another.  Ray left in Chicago.  Guy here, with far more money than he had any logical right to possess.  Drew dead.  Chase nearly so.  All in the span of days.

"I am a bastard," Guy said, quietly, though not for any apparent shyness.  A rolling, soft tone, almost melodic.  A confession, perhaps.  "My mother was my father's mistress for a number of years; he did not provide her much.  He was quite wealthy, as was his wife, but she was unable to conceive and I was, I am quite certain, an accident.  A wanted one, to be certain.  To the man's credit, he did not leave us entirely without help and made an effort early on to be some part of my life, but the strain of living two lives had apparently taken so much a toll that he broke off contact.

"For a number of years, we barely survived; I do not know what you understand of the culture of Montréal, but there were few things quite so scandalous as being illegitimate, and even fewer more scandalous than being an unwed mother.  She could find little work.  I do not know entirely what happened, but when I was fifteen, we had a visit from a solicitor.  Such was my inheritance; it was not all of his fortune, but in lieu of her shame becoming public knowledge, his wife did not fight us receiving a fair portion of it.  My mother held the money in trust until I came of age; she sent me to université, and when the money transferred to me, I provided and still provide for her."

Somewhere, Renfield knew he was being distracted.  Soothed.  The urge to be defiant to such things was certain, but less than the urge to continue listening.  He didn't look away from the window, but his eyebrow went up, a prompt to continue that he knew Guy would sense, if not see.

Guy took his time getting on with it, though.  When he did start again, it was the same tone, but layered upon a bedrock of grief.  "I acted much as you would expect any young man given a large sum of money after living in poverty.  I spent more than wise or necessary, though I remained quite responsible in terms of my mother and my education; I bought her a house, not large but quite beautiful, and I bought myself a ridiculously expensive sports car to go with my ridiculously expensive jewelry and my entirely ridiculous wardrobe.

"What they do not tell you, when you come into money, is that no matter how much you have, it is only window dressing upon your soul.  And if your soul is made of broken concrete and railroad tracks and dirt, then no amount of money will cover that."

Now, Renfield looked over.  Just to watch Guy's face.

"It is only window dressing, and everyone can see it but you.  Until you find a mirror, undistorted.  Such was Drew."  Likely without realizing it, Guy patted the rucksack he held upon his lap.  "It is very hard to avoid seeing yourself when you find such a mirror.  What was left, when my pretenses were dashed, was broken concrete and railroad tracks and dirt."

Renfield didn't know if he was meant to glean something from the parable.  If it was even _true_ , though he had no reason to disbelieve the man.  To come to know him this way, only after their lives sat in mixed up shards on the floor, didn't feel real.  But he thought he'd known before what Guy had lost, in Drew; it seemed now he'd missed something huge, in dismissing Drew as an abrasive resident of Nipawin.

He knew his curiosity must've shown, but it seemed Guy was not to tell whatever it was that had fashioned a pale-haired brawler into a perfect mirror.

"I have never needed more than I am."  He looked down at the rucksack, which had passed through security probably only by the grace of God, given the trace smells that must have existed within it.  Equally miraculous was the brief, sad grin he gave the thing.  And then he spoke with an accent not his own, something that felt disturbingly like nesting dolls of deja vu, and sent chills down Renfield's spine.  "See what happens."


	7. Interlude

#### Interlude

_ September 1995 _

  
  


The pall over the detachment was tangible.

Turnbull felt his eyes slide away from the clock, and couldn't make himself look at it again. The building was quiet; Mitchell was on patrol, taking 420. Severn was in his office. There was no paperwork with which to occupy himself; his very limited report on what had happened an hour and a half prior was finished. Even short, he could barely remember what it was that he wrote.

Corporal Chase was getting an x-ray.

Turnbull felt his stomach turn again, and wrapped his arms around his midsection without thinking. It was late summer outside, bright and hot, the light of the sun baking down on the prairie and the town. Inside, though, it felt cold. Even though it wasn't. He lost himself staring into the bands of light through the window, too tired and sick and  _ sad _ to feel any apprehension for what was going to happen. It would be his third reprimand. Severn's face had been red, when he pulled up on scene.

He could not quite remember what was said. Only their expressions. Chase looked distressed and worried, holding his own arm by the wrist to his chest self-protectively. Severn looked angry. Not the eternal warm-hearted frustration that sat so much more naturally upon his face, but something darker and hotter, like the boiling of smoke.

"Renfield."

Turnbull turned his head; his staff sergeant stood in the doorway of his office, expression serious. The anger gone, replaced with something closed and determined. Turnbull stood and made his way in, standing in front of the desk. Severn went back behind it again, then picked up the paper and set it down for Turnbull to sign; another mark against him. A deserved one.

It seemed that his life was now defined by fractions of minutes where he had been too slow.

"You're being transferred," Severn said, after Turnbull signed the written reprimand and handed it back. "You'll have your pick of administrative details. In the meantime, I'm going to put you on day turn; you can do some filing and help out Samantha with the administrative work here, until it comes through."

_ That _ was enough to shock Turnbull past the numb ache; he felt a hard jolt of panic and stared. He knew he was not... that he had been... but to be  _ transferred… _

Severn's face didn't waver, though something in his eyes softened slightly. "I'll get the list together. Take the rest of today off, go home, get some rest."

  
  
  
  
  


The next day, his own terror and shame gnawing a hole in him beneath his breastbone, Turnbull came in and did everything he was supposed to and several things he wasn't; papers ended up scattering when his hand twitched at the wrong time, tea ended up across his desk, and under it all was a clawing desperation to find some way to make it all  _ right _ again. And the sick certainty that nothing could.

Nothing ever could.

Corporal Chase said nothing about it, when he came in for the afternoon shift. About the transfer. Just looked at Turnbull with a worried, guilty expression in his eyes; offered a greeting, then went to his own desk.

It was only then that Turnbull knew he had been given up on for good. Two months later, he walked out for the last time.

Chase never said goodbye.


	8. Chapter 6

#### Chapter 6

 

From Winnipeg to Regina was easier.  From Regina to Nipawin, hell.

Hell was a prairie, and a slate gray sky that stretched to the horizon; it was wide open and tall golden grasses bowed or rising above white, empty fields, where wind sent snow to swirl in eddies, currents, across the road like the flow of water; it build up in dunes and banks and otherworldly patterns on the other side, a world where not even the few stands of trees or brush could obscure the horizon.  Renfield had driven this road.  More than once, he had driven this road.  He had left on this road.

After leaving the last outskirts of Regina, the sheer visible distance made the base of his throat ache.

He knotted his jaw and drove.  Guy spoke no more, once they had rented the car.  They would be in Nipawin after sunset, though not by much.  Every kilometer brought them closer.  Guy had bought a sandwich on the way out of the airport, but Renfield did not eat.  Could not.  His stomach was too upset, too clenched and pinched to force down food, and whatever drove him on despite it burned through him like an almost tangible ache in his muscles, forcing him to move.

He was in Saskatchewan.

That simple, quiet, plaintive little thought made his eyes sting.

He should not be here.  He should be in Chicago, poised upon a precipice, ready to leap hand in hand into the future with Ray.  He should be hearing word in relatively short order about his new posting.  He should not be _here_ , with Guy Laurent at his side, and Mike Chase in the immediate future.  He had _lost this_ , long ago; what he had managed to rebuild of a life had no room for Nipawin, Saskatchewan in it.  It _couldn't_.  It couldn't, not if he was to continue breathing.

There was little else to do, on a four and a half hour drive, but to look at the world.  Little else to do, but feel the ache and rawness.  To feel the desperation to return to the warm, happy life he had flown away from far more recently than the one he had left behind here.  To feel the impending sense of disaster.

To feel the weight of the near-infinite sky above him, and remember living beneath it.

_I’m not supposed to be here._

He made it so far as the turnoff onto 35 before he had to stop to walk away from the car; to bury his tears into the cold shelter of his own hands.  There was a chill under his skin there could be no shelter from.

He made it so far as Nipawin, before he started shivering.

How it was that his soul whispered rather than screamed was lost to him.  These roads were as familiar as the rub-worn place on his own steering wheel, and it should have been coming _home._  It _was,_ once.  Somewhere just before 35 turned into 8th Street West, it seemed the last thread broke, and he was fully naked to the cold that covered everything.

Guy was still.  Perfectly still in the seat, silent, as though the kilometers under the tires didn't rip at the soul, as though a forehead to the window did any kind of justice to the place beyond the glass.  Nothing marked the driver of the car that shouldn't be here.  Life in this place had continued as it always had, having seen the arrival of just another man, the mundanity of a few years that it took to become one of the deepest parts of his soul, just to take little note of him passing out of it again.

Not like Chase.  A piece of Nipawin's fabric that was bleeding for it now.

Nipawin's sign passed them; the simplest thing in the world, a bit of manufactured metal, printed on and staked into the ground to mark the limits of a town like any other in Saskatchewan.

Guy pressed his fingertips to the glass, then pulled them away, leaving behind foggy prints that faded away quickly.  Renfield shivered.

He was driving the wrong way on a one-way street.

  
  
  
  
  


There were more cars, by far, than usual in the parking lot of the Nipawin Hospital.  Including one police cruiser, including two unmarked cars, a small battery of other vehicles, one of which was a news station in Regina.  All of them parked amongst slushy snow, trampled and dirty and dark.  The cruiser was white, in the new style; he could not make himself look at the numbers on it.  Despite himself, he wondered what became of Chase's B414; certainly, it was no longer in service.

He couldn't bear to even think briefly upon his own.

He fully expected to be turned away, once he had managed to find a parking spot and get inside.  It was a small hospital; taxed further, no doubt, by the sheer number of _spectators_.  Renfield could not pretend he wasn't relieved when Guy remained just at the entrance.  A few patients and families milled, looking decidedly uncomfortable with all of the motion and bustle.  The news reporter was hovering around looking likewise.  It had to be getting towards when the doors closed for the night, and Renfield was well aware that even he would be susceptible to such a thing.

He still paused for a moment at the end of the 200 wing when he saw Mrs. Chase talking to another nurse, though, feeling the cold jolt of recognition and the spike of adrenaline, as though he was about to be caught somewhere he had no right to be.  She was dressed in civilian clothes, rather than her scrubs.  It surprised him, though he didn't know why.  There was certainly no possibility she would be allowed to work on her own _husband_ and no reason why he could imagine she would try to work anyway, but even so.

Renfield wished he could disappear into a wall.  Wake up in Ray's arms in Chicago.  Turn around and walk out.  He knew he would at least wait until he had word of Chase's fate, and then leave this place as a closed chapter in his life.  But near anything had to be better than looking at the man's wife, and wondering if she remembered, and wondering if she _knew_ and perhaps sadly hoping she forgot.  And perhaps sadly hoping that she hadn't.

It took her a moment, and she glanced past him, impersonal.  Then she looked again, her eyes widening slightly.  Her face was composed, mostly, but her eyes were puffy, and her hair unbrushed, pulled into a chaotic ponytail.

Renfield tried, and failed, to fight down a shiver.  Mrs. Chase excused herself from the other nurse, and walked down the hall to where he could not force himself to move.  For reasons he could not fathom, he expected a slap.

What he got was a touch, a brush down his shoulder, kind and warm and it hurt, and it felt _wrong_ and--

"Chicago, still?  Or did they put you somewhere else?" she asked, looking up at him with dull surprise and something else he couldn't quite identify.

"Chicago, ma'am," Renfield replied, after a long moment where he had to wrestle with his own voice. "I... Staff Sergeant Severn..."

She nodded, looking down towards where Chase no doubt was, and Renfield felt his stomach hit his boots.  Then she looked back at him, almost dazed.  She must be.  To have been here, likely from when she got word herself.  "I'll put you on the list.  If you want to see him, he's scheduled for surgery in about an hour and a half."

"I... I'm not..."  The idea of... "Is there anything I can do?" he finally asked, and hated himself for the desperation that seeped into his tone.

"Go see him," she answered, frankly. "He's not awake, but go anyway.  Scrub up first.  Feet, right hand or forehead, don't touch anywhere else."

He didn't need her to say the rest.

_In case it's your last chance to say goodbye._

  
  
  
  


It happened that devastation could take physical form.

That was a lesson he had learned once before.  It was nothing like a hospitalized Ray, which was profanity of its own, but the man joked through it.  So clearly lived and breathed, if not comfortably, if not untouched, the terror of what those bullets might've done if differently aimed enough to steal Renfield's breath.  But it wasn't this.  What could have been.

What, for Chase, absolutely was.

The ICU was desperately tiny, something that was mixed of blessing, in that it provided privacy of a sort.  Not enough.  But something more than faceless, if nothing else.  There was only one occupant, despite the chaos outside.  It should have been serenity, of a sort.  It wasn't.  As he couldn't make himself look at the man, he looked at the mechanics; monitors and the ventilator, the various paraphernalia that went with such extensive life support.  It was delaying the inevitable.  He knew it.  But he could not make himself look.

It was hard enough, honestly, to recall the man in his own mind's eye, whole and healthy.  It hurt.  A part of the hurt he had felt near constantly on some level, since being reminded Nipawin even existed.  Renfield tried, but he couldn't, quite.  Even in his own mind's eye.  Even though some part of him was as desperate to as he was desperate to avoid it.

Which only left reality.

"I should not be here," he whispered, and he didn't honestly know which one of them he was addressing.  "Nor should you," he added, clarifying.

The floor was immaculately clean.  The figure upon the bed was a gaping blind spot, and Renfield found his fingers around the arm rest of a chair, dragging it that bit closer.

When he sat down, he regarded his own hands.

At some point he must've clenched them.  There was the pattern of half-moons in his palm; unbroken skin, but irritated and red.  He flexed his fingers.  Open and closed.

It seemed almost without warning - to _himself_ \- that he looked up.

The last of his own warmth seemed to seep right from the indents in his palms, leaving behind the impossible weight of disbelief.  Bleeding away to absolute zero, the darkness of deep space where all atomic motion ceases.

Corporal - _Sergeant_ \- Mike Chase was covered in blankets, nigh on unrecognizable in a state that Renfield knew hovered dangerously over death.  The body that had laid bleeding on the road for some Godforsaken stretch of time, that had been violated by bullets and the evil intentions of cowards unknown, now lay fragile under layers of medicinal obscenity.  Breath mechanically regular, and thanks only to the endotracheal tube and ventilator.  They had taken his mustache.  If he even still kept one. There seemed no limit to the tubes and monitors and necessary violations; beyond it, eyes closed, Chase looked painfully _small_.

He couldn't bear to look at the man's face for any longer, and focused instead on his near hand, still on the blanket.

His eyes fell further to his own lap, and he shut his eyes, only breathing.

Under the scent of disinfectant, blood, hospital, fear, there was Chase.  The fundamental smell that belonged to the man had yet endured, somewhere trace within it.  The realization of just how well he'd known it ached, quietly.  What it made up; what it had meant to him.  Safety.  Stability.  Patience.  Only now did he find the memory of his FTO, grinning or smirking or steely professionalism or quiet worry; only now did he remember the ready presence at his back that he had believed would catch him, if he fell.

Until it didn't.

It wasn't for Renfield anymore.  But it still existed, as it _should_ , and it could disappear in a moment.  This moment.  The next.

Renfield was not meant to be here.  For some reason, in that moment, the thought made him nod.  Silence held, so much as there was silence.  Nothing could make a busy hospital precisely peaceful.  

His own voice was a lost little whisper, at first.  He felt it solidify as he spoke, drifting into numbness.  No less a whisper.  Some less hurt.

"You..."

A hand fell to his left arm, rubbing, the mannerism beyond him until he realized that it belonged to Ray.

"You would be forgiven for wondering just why I am here."  He stared off into nothing, thumb ticking his own arm.  "I haven't an adequate answer.  Only that I could not... not.  Come."  

He nodded again, as though asked a question.  As though answering it.  Presumption of the worst sort, with the most painful sort of laugh on the breath out.  But then, when the conversation existed only for the dark of an unconscious mind, presumption was inevitable.  "Chicago.  Such as it is.  Your successor was nothing like you.  I think you would find her baffling.  Troubling.  As I did, for the longest time.  It seems to me I've come to know her best right before the assignment will end.  Desk work is a flavor of madness that defies description."

Renfield looked far beyond his FTO's face.  The man, obviously, had no response.

"I suppose this makes a terrible greeting.  A man comes in... to see you and all he can do is compare you to your successor.  Rude.  Terribly rude."  He'd started to dig his thumbnail into his arm.  It dug there for some time; the same words on his lips, waiting to fall from them.

"I cannot remember what I should.  Sir.  But I can remember at least that at one time you must have... you must have--"  Renfield bared his teeth, one crystal moment of pain in the blankness.

He no longer knew how that sentence was meant to end.  

So much could _never_ be said here; so much was lost upon his transfer, what hadn't been lost upon answering that call minutes too slow, what hadn't been lost upon a bridge before that.  Everything in him wanted Chase to simply _wake up_ , to offer that steady patience and reassurance and perhaps a quirk of his roguish grin, laughing off bullets and living up to the ideal Renfield once treasured.

And everything in him wanted to disappear precisely before that could happen; to leave this in the past, where it belonged.

His pride.  His shame.

"You should not be here," he said again, pointlessly.  It encompassed so many things.  His hopes for the man's survival and recovery.  His hopes for his own closing of this book.  His anger at those who had put Chase here.  His loss at actually _being_ here himself.  "I..."

He forced his eyes to focus, on the man who had trained him, shot and cut and unconscious.  And there were no more words.  In the end, he could not even manage a quiet goodbye.

  
  
  
  


Cindy Chase hadn't appeared to know what to say to him, after he had walked back out.  She asked after his arrangements; he answered that he would find a hotel.  She nodded, then returned to her husband.  He nodded and returned to Guy.

He called Ray at the same time as his FTO was going in for a second surgery; less damage control, more attempted repair, surgery shoehorned in when the specialist from Regina could be there.  Outside, the night had deepened.  Guy sat next to him, a silent presence he could not even summon the energy to be annoyed at.  It felt somehow wrong to dial his own number, and know his Ray was home, and that he was here.

_"Hello?"_

"Ray," Renfield said, pressing his head harder against the phone, as though he could physically lean his head into that voice.

_"Ah, God, Ren."_  Ray's voice tightened. _"You okay?  Anything happen?"_

Renfield took a slow breath and let it out, uncaring about the long distance bill. "No.  Well, yes.  I... visited Sergeant Chase.  He is going into surgery again.  I am in a motel.  Guy is here."

It sounded like a report, and no doubt Ray chewed over all of the unsaid things before he answered, _"I managed to move some stuff around.  I think I'll be able to get out of here by the day after tomorrow.  Welsh is really pissed off at me, I guess I can't blame him, but even after all this is over, couldn't hurt me to use the time to get ready to move and all that.  Thatcher put you on sick leave."_

Renfield nearly huffed a laugh at that.  Off-duty sick.  It seemed somehow entirely too appropriate.  

Silence stretched down the line.  Then Ray's voice came over again, soft, _"It'll be okay, Renny.  I miss you."_

"I miss you, too," Renfield answered, closing his eyes tight.  Longing desperately to wrap himself around Ray, or wrap Ray around him and not let go.  "I love you."

_"I love you, too."_  Ray seemed on the breath of saying more, but whatever it was went unsaid.  Not unfelt.   _"Get some sleep, good-lookin'."_

"I'll call tomorrow."  Renfield grit his teeth, reluctant to give up the brief connection.  But he was exhausted.  Ray had to be likewise.  "Take care, Ray."

_"You too, Ren.  Night."_

The click was on another moment's delay, and then Renfield sat the phone back on the cradle to rest his face in his hands.  Just to breathe.  Picturing his Ray leaning with his hand upon the wall next to the phone, too many miles south; picturing Chase laying on a table, covered in light and blood.  He was barely aware of the small noise that forced its way past his teeth; a tiny expression of helplessness that was shattered by a hard, steady knock on the door.

Renfield jumped.  Guy eyed the door warily.

The knock came again, slightly more insistent.  A male voice came through, one he didn't recognize: "Constable Turnbull?"

Renfield shivered once, before he shoved it down, back into a box.  He stood and went to the door, peeping out to find two men in suits.  Their bearing immediately suggesting they were RCMP.  After a moment, gripping to his composure, he opened the door. "Yes?"

The younger of the two, with iron-colored hair and iron-colored eyes, looked back at him with his ID in hand. "We want to ask you some questions about Sergeant Chase."

Renfield blinked; the older man, with more white in his hair, peered around him at Guy.  Who offered a nonchalant wave, then fell back to sprawl upon the bed.  Renfield knew full well that it was false nonchalance; that Guy was paying far more attention than he would immediately let on.  Not feeling like revealing that, Renfield looked back at the men. "How can I help you?"

"Had Chase recently contacted you?" the younger man asked, businesslike.

"No, sir."

"When was the last time you spoke to him?"

"November, 1995.  Three years ago," Renfield said, feeling uneasy.  "May I ask what this is about?"

"Sorry, Constable.  It's an ongoing investigation."  The man offered a bare sort of nod. "Thank you."  And without so much as an introduction, or a farewell, he turned to walk away.

The older man lingered briefly longer, peering at Renfield thoughtfully.  And then he followed.

Renfield watched them walk back to the unmarked unit -- one of those that had been parked outside of the hospital -- and then watched as they got in and drove away.  Then, more quietly than necessary, he closed the door and looked back to where Guy was now sitting up, mouth set in a line.

"Something's happening," Guy said.

The hair on Renfield's forearms stood.


	9. Chapter 7

#### Chapter 7

 

Guy told him what he had seen in Chase's office; the maps and the notes, the suspicion he had been viewed with just after his arrest.  Suspicion was not to be unexpected, given Guy's history, but it was the quality of the suspicion that apparently lingered in Guy's mind after the fact.  According to Guy, none of the other members Renfield had known were stationed at the detachment now.  Only Chase had remained.

It was also the first time he had heard _who_ had sent him that cruiser.  He had not let himself think about it, choosing instead to accept it as Guy’s offering.  But now...

None of it gave Renfield any clue as to what had happened.  Nor could he escape the way he found himself thinking, not of the case or the investigators, but whether or not his own name had been brought up during those meetings.  Whether Chase had asked after him, because he was clearly present enough in the man’s thoughts to send that. Whether Guy had spoken.  

_“You didn’t save one for me?  You’re heartless, Turnbull.”_

Renfield breathed through his teeth, then dragged on his coat so he could walk instead of pretend to sleep.

The little motel was centrally located; to the west, the bridge.  To the north, the detachment.  To the east, the hospital.  All of them framed in Renfield's mind; a mental map that had remained intact of this town, even when he had done everything he could to get away from it.

In the darkness of early morning and under the weight of cold and exhaustion, he could see the world through two sets of eyes and both were his own.

Renfield started walking towards the detachment.  He wasn't sure why.  It was not as though it was _his_ anymore.  He had no intentions of going in, or announcing himself.  Doubtless the Mounties now stationed there already had enough to deal with, between the shooting and the investigation.  But he didn't know where else he could go.

He didn't belong here anymore.  Even when he could still see through the eyes of the man who had.

It was quiet; he saw only the occasional car or semi as he walked.  The town was laid out in old snow and new frost, and a blue moon occasionally cut through the clouds, lighting up the world where streetlights couldn't reach.  It was only after he had walked four blocks and his mind noted a man walking on the opposite side of the road, automatically taking in a mental description and reading his body language, that Renfield even realized it was the midnight shift in Nipawin.

He kept walking, but his breaths now came through his teeth.

  
  
  


The detachment building had not changed.  He expected to see his own car there.  He expected to see his own cruiser there, too.  And Chase's.

They weren't.  Instead, there was a newer white Caprice parked close to the back door, and beyond that, a couple of others.  A Blazer.  A pickup.  It appeared the detachment had gotten a number of new vehicles, to go with the apparent increase in manpower.   But the single light illuminating the parking area was just the same, as well as the single light over the detachment's back door and the sign on it warning away unauthorized persons.

He didn't know how long he stood here.  It felt more like a dream, than a reality; as though he had gotten lost in sleep and wandered here to find fragments of memory and prod at his own wounds.  To return to a crime scene, long after it had been cleaned and sanitized, and see if the ghosts remained to mark it.

Even near dead on his feet, he still jumped when the back door opened and a Mountie came out, heading for the cruiser and muttering something under his breath.

The man glanced up and jumped, then immediately shifted gears into firm professionalism. "This area's off limits to the public."

"I know," Renfield said, at length.  Once the initial startle faded, his own weariness came back in force.

The other man apparently didn't quite know how to answer that, looking briefly baffled before asking, "Is there something I can help you with?"

No response that wanted to come was worth speaking.  The other man was tall.  Perhaps even taller than Renfield, which was rare, though he didn't know why he noted it.

His own silence had apparently lingered.  He was on the receiving end of a look he'd given many times himself; usually to someone he was going to politely dismiss from a premises.  Notched up by what he could read as some measure of anxiety; it was only then that he thought that perhaps after a shooting that had happened a mere twenty-four hours before, this wasn't the best way to go about things.

"Look, you can't be out here," the man said, more firmly.

Renfield's jaw tightened a moment, and he made eye contact with the space directly beside the man.  "My name is Constable Turnbull."

There was a pause.

"Constable."  The man seemed briefly taken aback, at a loss.  His posture hadn't relaxed yet.

Renfield held his hand out to his side. "My ID, if I may?"

"Please," came the man's answer, a hint of something dryly amused creeping into his tone.

Renfield was caught off-guard by his own faint half-grin when he showed it.

  
  
  


"I've made some coffee," the Constable apparently named Allan had said when he let Renfield in to the detachment building.  Even Renfield could recognize the awkwardness with which he did it.

It was alien to see the man so familiar with what had been his building.  And it was certainly strange that Renfield was going to accept the coffee.  The acceptance was no more out of place than he was, here, so it made no difference. There was a touch of pique to the thought.

The building had not changed much, since the last time he was here.

There were the same fluorescent lights, the same desk configurations, even the same posters on the walls, faded where the sun came through the windows.  There was less tea on the counter, and a different assortment of coffee mugs than had been there, but it mostly looked the same.  The keys for the various vehicles were hanging on the same wooden square, white labels with unit numbers marking each hook.  The shotgun cabinet was locked, as usual, and Constable Allan moved around with an easy grace that came with knowing a space well.

"Here for the investigation?" Allan asked, sitting on one of the desk chairs, though there was a doubtful note in the question.

"No," Renfield answered, holding onto the mug of coffee.  Even having accepted it, he had yet to sip on it.  He looked around for another moment, distantly, not particularly wanting to make eye contact with Allan.  He still wasn't sure why he was here, but he still had nowhere else to go.

"Oh."

There was little more that could be said.  Even that simple acknowledgment was loaded.

Renfield looked down into the coffee mug.  It had only been twenty four hours or so since the shooting.  He didn't know what he thought should be happening; doubtless the crime scene had already been processed, and there were no doubt reports that were being worked on, a manhunt no doubt happening.  But even in the midst of this, Allan was clearly on his way out the door to patrol.  Because that didn't stop, couldn't stop, despite--

"Were you there?" he asked, and something inside of him fluttered, jumped, tried to jerk against his own question even as he made himself look up.

Allan shook his head, looking down into his own coffee mug, opening his mouth and then closing it again.  He was young; younger, though not by terribly much, than Renfield.  Even so, something in his expression seemed ragged and worn.

"No.  Little Mike and Marie got that call," he answered, at length. "She's on the road.  The investigators pulled rank and sent him home earlier, he was pretty shaken up."

Renfield felt his thumb press tighter into the mug at that, ticking off with his fingernail.  It was a moment before he realized Allan was watching the motion.  It wasn't suspicion.  Renfield quite firmly wasn't going to name what it seemed to be.

That thumb stilled right where it was.

"Most of us are."

"You know the sergeant?"  It was a polite question, an offered opening; there was little other reason Renfield would be here, as investigation had been ruled out.  Allan seemed more uncomfortable, now, as though the silence was particularly stifling.

Renfield could empathize and did.  He wished he knew the answer to even that question.

_I thought I had._

"I transferred from here three years ago.  It was my first detachment; Corporal-- forgive me, Sergeant Chase was my FTO," he said, at length.

He was sort of surprised by the flash of mixed amusement and pain that crossed Allan's face at his answer.  "All the ducklings..." Allan said, though there must have been something in Renfield's expression that made him feel he had to explain, lest it become offense.  He gestured towards the phone. "We've been fielding calls all day.  Mostly the media, and a bunch of high-ups.  But some were from Sergeant Chase's former recruits.  You're the first one to show up in person, though."

Renfield tried to force his eyebrow back down.

"I guess we'll know what to tell them in the morning," Allan said, mostly to himself; he stood, suddenly.  "I better go.  Don't want anyone to think that-- you know."

"Yes," Renfield said, and stood, setting the full mug of coffee aside and looking around once more before heading for the door.

  
  
  


"This is always the worst part."

Renfield felt his exhaustion through every bone, every muscle, every cell, and he felt his own desperation just as keenly.  He jumped, his heart giving a tired, half-hearted leap in his chest, and then he nodded.  He was shivering now steadily, low-level, and the world tracked wrong to his vision, but he couldn't... couldn't be anywhere else.  Anywhere but here.  No matter how much he wanted to be.

Cindy Chase's eyes were ringed dark.  She leaned against the wall of the waiting room, rubbing absently over her own upper arm, a gesture that Renfield found achingly like Ray.  She appeared on the verge of saying something else, then when the silence had gone too long, abandoned it with a faint shake of the head.

The waiting room was silent.  Renfield only came through the door by virtue of his ID and Mrs. Chase's good grace.  Occasionally, the faint sound of a page broke the quiet, but compared to earlier, it was almost peaceful.  Staff still moved about, but patients were in their rooms, and families were in their homes.

He wanted to ask her if it was true; that during the hour of the wolf, mortality was at its highest.  He didn't.

"What..." he started, another question he wanted to ask and didn't want an answer to.  It took him two more false starts before he could spit it out; she didn't look at him, while he struggled, just stared at the hallway doors.  "What are his chances?"

Mrs. Chase blinked at the doors, eyebrows briefly raising.  Then she closed her eyes. "Really awful," she said, and Renfield winced at the harsh edge on her voice.  She went to elaborate, then again apparently lost her strength or will to do so, and shook her head again.  She didn't open her eyes again until she heard the door open; the doctor who stepped out looked vaguely familiar to Renfield, from perhaps a lifetime ago, and he was only aware he was holding his breath after Mrs. Chase had walked over.  He did not presume to follow.

The doctor glanced at him, but then looked back at Mrs. Chase; whatever he said doubtless made more sense to her than it did to Renfield.  Even so, he was able to at least make out that Chase had survived his second surgery, though given the expression on the doctor’s face, the matter was still far from over. The easy familiarity with which the doctor reached out and rubbed Mrs. Chase’s upper arm in the same spot she had been rubbing made Renfield feel like an invader all over again.  They spoke a few moments more, and she brought her hand up to cover her eyes, face twisting and shoulders hunching, shaking.

Somehow, even knowing that Chase had survived, the sight bottomed Renfield’s gut right out.

The doctor kept rubbing her arm, and Renfield was able to make out his suggestion that she go home and rest; when he looked up, his gaze fell immediately on Renfield, questioningly.  He was reminded for a cold sort of moment of taking Ray home from a hospital that had been filled with Vecchios.

“Are you here to give her a ride?” the doctor asked, which was when Renfield actually realized he _had_ moved, had started approaching.

The tightness in his throat made it nearly impossible to speak, so he just nodded.  Even though that had not been his intention.  Mrs. Chase hunched her shoulders tighter, for a moment, and her breath was hitched; after that moment, her dark-framed eyes now red-rimmed, she looked at him.

He was not sure what the twitch of her mouth was meant to be.  But after a moment, she looked back at the doctor. “If anything happens...”

“We’ll call,” the doctor said, nodding.

Mrs. Chase dug through her pockets, going through nearly all of them before coming up with her car keys.  And without another word, she offered them to Renfield.

  
  
  


It should have been a relatively straightforward drive up the road, but Renfield had been stiffly nudged to take Mrs. Chase to her _apartment_.  Not the farmhouse that they had lived in together, that Renfield was passingly familiar with, but an apartment.   _Her_ apartment.  Not theirs.

Thus had set the tone of the drive.

The revelation that the woman maintained a separate residence made him feel vaguely _sick_ , and for some reason it felt as though the air in the car was slowly being sucked out of the passenger side window.

Regardless, she didn’t say anything.  Her apartment building wasn’t terribly far from the hospital -- nothing was terribly far from anything else in the town itself -- and it wasn’t long before she was directing Renfield to her parking space.

He pulled into the space, and there was a long moment where neither of them moved.

“I’m sorry,” she said, blinking a few times, then looking over at him. “Did you leave your car at the hospital?”

“No,” he blurted, before correcting himself.  “I mean-- yes.  But...  please do not...  I’m used to walking.”

He spent the next few moments trying to figure out why the patently confused look he got back felt quite so scathing.  It certainly didn’t appear so.  He tried to fill the silence with _some_ manner of explanation, not entirely sure how it was he came to think he owed one.

“Ah--  Chicago is something of a parking... issue, and in any case, I-- well--  suffice it to say that I do it frequently.”  There was no reason why that should have been difficult to say.  Nor was there any why he should feel so small as he did in the presence of a woman who was a great deal shorter than he was.

“Oh.”  Mrs. Chase looked at him, then nodded, seemingly to herself.  He wasn’t sure what to make of her expression; it seemed both distant and not, critical and empty, all at the same time. When he handed over the keys, she put them in her pocket and got out of the car. “Thanks for the ride.”

He got out himself, closing the door.  Even that seemed too loud.

“I’m sorry,” he said, another rush to give words to whatever desperation remained even after getting word that Chase had survived thus far. “I... there isn’t... is there...?”

“No.”  The word was tired; flat.  Cindy Chase looked at her apartment building, then at him.  And then, on a breath out, her shoulders slumped in something frightfully like defeat.

He stood long after she had vanished into the building, long enough for the snow to start falling.

  
  
  


“Hey.”

It was barely above a whisper; it tickled the edge of Renfield’s barely conscious thoughts, filtered through tired dregs to pull up the urge to smile, the urge to cry.

“Hey, good-lookin’.  Wanna give me a little room?”

Renfield didn’t answer in words, just shifted over, having long memorized the precise amount of space it took to place Ray within his sphere of being.  This place had been-- had been-- it should not feel so foreign to him, so much like a dream, as it did.  It was a distant thought that arrived before his mind could remind him of why it should, but Ray felt like reality.  The sort of reality that didn’t squeeze mercilessly on his heart with every breath.

Ray laid down next to him; Renfield could smell the bustle and sweat.  He wanted to ask what had happened, how it had all worked out, how Ray was here earlier than expected.

He wanted to ask, but he didn’t.  Couldn’t.  He just curled around Ray, head on his shoulder, and fell back to sleep, unable to let himself think of anything beyond the edge of the bed, and his own tears.


	10. Chapter 8

#### Chapter 8

 

“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to walk into the 2-7 again without something being thrown at my head.”

Ren didn’t look quite awake yet, but Ray talked anyway.  Mostly ‘cause it seemed to help.  It was already dark, and according to Guy, Ren had come back to the motel not long after dawn and just laid down, saying something about not feeling well, then was out like a light for pretty much the whole day.

“But hey, I kinda knew that was coming.”

The last day had been excruciatingly long.  ‘Cause yeah, he’d only put Ren on a plane the morning before, but it felt like longer than that.  It felt like he was sending him off into some impossible situation that he might not come back from.  So, Ray had double-timed his efforts.

He’d gotten travel arranged, got storage for the Riv arranged, picked up the plane tickets Guy bought for him, got on the plane, transferred once, picked up the rental car Guy had reserved for him in Regina and hightailed it to Nipawin.  He drove through more flat prairie land than he’d ever seen in his _life_ , he’d peered through the snow down the really bad roads to find his way, and he’d come into the little town that looked a whole lot like the the other little towns he’d passed through, what he could see of it.

Now, it was night and there wasn’t anything to do, except sit in the motel room and eat pizza from some place called Wild Bill’s, which at least had delivery.  And talk.  The couple hour nap he took didn’t really do away with the tiredness, but Ray felt kind of energetic despite it.

Ren hadn’t touched the pizza, and he still looked kind of out of it.  Guy was out walking, God only knew where.  And Ray felt a little like he had just walked into a _graveyard_ for how the world felt.

At least Chase had still been alive, when last anyone had gotten an update.  That was something.

“You should have seen Welsh’s face.  I feel a little bad about it, but it wasn’t like I have any open cases left.”  Ray shrugged. “When I told him why, he cooled down.  I think he must be wondering how many Mounties I know, but who’s going to argue about you going when one gets shot?”

Ren nodded, absently running a hand back through his hair and looking at the pizza box.  Ray didn’t know what he was thinking, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been easy.

He thought for a long moment about whether he should say what he was eventually gonna have to say, and then finally spit it out, “There were some guys here a little earlier.  While you were asleep.  Couple guys in suits, West and Steele, like something out of some kind of television show; said they were RCMP investigators and wanted to talk to you.”

Ren looked like the words weren’t English for a second or two, before a sensical kind of confusion settled on his face.  Ray was keeping it casual, but the whole thing smelled kind of funny to him; he’d been dealing with the US style of federal investigative assholes for awhile now, and he got the same kind of vibe from this Canadian variety, too.  Like they were just looking for some kind of weak spot somewhere, so they could stick a knife through.

Then again, Ray might have been a little paranoid.  But not without _good cause_.

“He was shot,” Ren managed eventually, though it wasn’t like Ray didn’t already know that.  “It seems... it seems routine.”

Ray didn’t honestly know whether Ren believed that or not; it was almost a question, but it could’ve been nothing more than figuring out the whole conscious sense thing.

“Maybe.”  Ray nodded.  Sometimes - a lot of times - Ray _really_ hated doing anything to make that idealism dingy.  “But why do they want to talk to _you_?”

Renfield blinked, looking for all the world like he didn't notice the smudge.  "I'm the only one who came."  That was almost a question.

“Only...?”

“His only recruit.  There were... a few of us calling, apparently.”

_“Recruit?”_ Ray asked, eyebrows going up.  Okay, so he knew this guy was Ren’s co-worker, maybe even supervisor, but...

“He was my FTO,” Ren said, and Ray didn’t really like the way it sounded like it was a defeat for Ren to say it.

After chewing on that new bit of gristle, Ray picked up another slice of pizza and offered it over, sitting on the bed like he was settling in for the long haul.  Because he was.  “Tell me?”

It seemed like every time they got near any of this, they skirted the atmosphere before burning up on reentry.  It would be frustrating, but Ray found he kinda didn’t direct frustration at Ren.  It looked for a little while like it might happen again; how they could be in the middle of the _town_ and still so far away from what any of it meant was beyond Ray.

He was starting to think this one had broken up, too, when he got an answer.

“I'm not certain what I expected."  It was just above a whisper.  "By every example set in... in Depot, he should have been... should have been some kind of tyrant.  Or cold.  Or...  I'm not certain.  What I thought he would be.”

Ren looked like he was looking for any excuse to distract himself at that point, which was probably why he finally took Ray’s slice of pizza.  Given Ray had a feeling Ren probably hadn’t eaten since he left _Chicago_ , though, it was a win-win situation.

Ren nibbled on the pizza, not exactly devouring it - maybe to prolong actually telling more of the story - but he finally spoke again, “I was certain that I was in for some... some continued manner of abuse; I don’t doubt for a moment that my file contained a number of marks against me.  I came in determined to show no weakness, to... to perhaps stave off the inevitable, though I was quite... quite nervous despite that determination.  I waited for barked orders.  Or cold derision.  For the man to see instantly through each of my walls, judge me lacking, and set about finishing what those at Depot felt they must start."  Ren stared far beyond the speckled cheese on his dinner.  "Perhaps he did see through them.  My greatest hardship at his hands was never being handed an answer when I could think of one for myself.”

It was hard to listen to; the more Ren talked, the more it was clear _why_ he was up here.  ‘Cause Ray didn’t think life as a Mountie after Depot had all been hell on earth - who’d stay with it as long as Ren did if it was? - but he never could really square up that space between Depot and Chicago, so much.  Couldn’t figure out what good had been sandwiched between the bad, before now.

“I trained for six months.  He was unfailingly patient.  My mistakes were not used against me; I was expected to learn from them, not pay for them.”  That part seemed to stop Ren short; he paused, looking thoughtful, before blinking whatever it was off and continuing, “After that, we occasionally patrolled together.  He remained something of a... a mentor, even after my field training was completed.  There was - _is_ \- not a single cruel bone in that man’s body.”

There was still a huge blank spot.  It stretched out somewhere between ‘mentor’ and the absolute nonexistence that the man had been so far as Ren had been willing to talk about until now.  And Ray wasn’t really sure how to reconcile the glowing terms Ren spoke of Chase in with that complete silence.  He’d heard about Guy, Ren’s family, Longfellow in conjunction with Guy, Depot... a lot of things.  But not this place.  And not Chase.

He got the feeling that the key fit the lock just perfectly.  It was just a question of whether they were about to turn it without breaking it off.

Ray asked, even though he knew the answer, “You keep in touch?”

The expression Ren wore didn’t seem to know whether it wanted to be guilt or stubbornness, and both worried the Hell out of Ray.

“No.”

  
  
  


Ren had finished his pizza, and Ray had crashed.  Guy had come back at some point - Ray had no idea when, and the man was wearing clothes he hadn’t taken to Chicago now - and the night passed in fits of half-waking and long hours and Ren’s occasional pacing and Guy watching the television.  It was a waiting kind of night, the kind where you were just hoping dawn would get there.

When it finally did, it was a low, rising light out of the darkness.  In the half-light of dawn, the motel room looked washed out; grays and standard motel patterns, inoffensive and depressing.

Ray had about a million questions, and he was only just starting to get something like answers.  Some of ‘em were more mundane, like how long they were gonna be up here.  Some were really _not_ mundane, like what happened to his Ren and why he tiptoed around this place like he was waiting to fall into some unseen crevasse.  Some revolved around the investigators and why they’d wanna talk to Ren, who had been far away from the shooting when it happened - easy to confirm he had been, too -  and couldn’t have known anything about it.

Breakfast was left-over pizza.

“You know anything about this?” he asked Guy, while Ren was in the shower.

Guy sat on the bed, indian-style, and didn’t answer.  Just chewed on the piece of pizza before looking at Ray over his glasses, and then he said, “It depends.”

“On?”

“Which anything you speak of.”

Ray raised his eyebrows, then scowled. “Hey, Guy, if you’re gonna give me a run-around--”

“I know very little,” Guy interrupted, gently. “Less than I thought I did.  I know that something terrible happened.  I know that Renfield was never the same afterward.  I know that he transferred to Chicago some months later, after a stint of deskwork.  And I don’t think it’s from me you want answers.”

Ray knotted his jaw for a moment, then nodded, dropping his head and his shoulders and sighing quietly at the ground.  “Yeah.”

They didn’t say anything more until Ren came out of the bathroom, newly showered and changed, looking ragged and tired despite sleep.  Ray gave him a kiss on the cheek, then went to go and shower himself.  Let the hot water soak away his travel aches, and maybe do something about his anxiety.  Put on some clean clothes.  Get _something_ under control, even if it was just his appearance and this motel room.

Anything was something.

  
  


 

Ray had never seen a smaller hospital in his _life_.  Then again, most of what he knew of hospitals was Chicago or Vegas, and the occasional trip to Florida.  But this place?  One story, and not even that big a story.  Its entire Emergency Department was a single set of doors.

Then again, it wasn’t like they were anywhere near a major metro.  For being in the middle of nowhere, it was probably considered pretty big.  Ray supposed that if he got hurt up here, he wouldn’t be too picky about the size of the hospital he was taken to.

That, and they must be able to handle more than it looked like.  After all, they kept a cop alive who’d taken three bullets and nearly bled to death before he was even through that single set of doors.

Ren moved around with the kind of familiarity that looked almost _surreal_ ; he knew just where he was going, which doors to go through, which nurses stations to stop at.  Ray wondered how many times he’d been in here, for whatever reason.  And what it must feel like to walk through now, three years later.

If Ren didn’t know what to expect when he got sent to the guy, Ray sure didn’t know what he expected walking into this place either.  Apparently, the 200-wing was where the ICU was located, but when they got into that area, Ray didn’t see anything that looked like an ICU.

Ren paused a moment, and Ray wasn’t sure why, until his other-half brushed at his hand and then walked with slow but steady steps towards the blonde woman in the hallway.  Ray stayed back, but he was unabashed about listening in.

_Oh._  She was Chase’s _wife._

Ah, God.  Ray didn’t envy her, any.  She looked about as wrecked as anyone would expect, kind of half-there and half-undone.  She spoke with Ren, and Ray felt himself frowning a little.  There was something _odd_ about it; about the expression on her face when she looked at Ren.  Something kind of wary, almost.  Something else.  He wasn’t really sure what.

Ren wasn’t much better; he held himself all Mountie-stiff, but he was leaning a little _away_ from her, like maybe he expected her to bite.  Ray wasn’t sure Ren was even aware he was doing that.  Probably not, or he wouldn’t.

Ren nodded, and then took a moment where he was clearly steeling himself, before walking down to one of the rooms.

Wow.  This place really was small, if the ICU was _one room_.

Ray watched for a moment; Chase’s wife looking after Ren, then dropping her head to rub at her forehead with one hand.  She probably had more’n one person looking after her, but he still debated a couple moments before walking down.  “Excuse me?”

She looked up, blinking, then her expression shifted to downright hostile; fierce, angry.  Ray barely had time to close his mouth before she snapped, “I told you yesterday, I _don’t know_ about any files my husband was working on, or any envelopes or whatever the hell you’re after.  If you didn’t find them in the damn house, then maybe you should think about whether they exist at all.  Now--”

“Whoa, lady,” Ray interrupted, hands up before he even quite realized they were.  “I’m not-- I’m here with Ren.  Ren Turnbull.”

She eyed him, still clearly pissed off, though there was a little crack in that.  Like she could run him through a polygraph with her eyes.  “RCMP...?”

“Chicago PD,” Ray answered, searching her face.  Geez, was she being hounded?  Couldn’t blame her for being hostile, if that was the case. “Not why I’m here, though; I’m Ren’s partner.”

The woman’s face was the picture of confusion at that.  She was probably trying to figure out if Ren had switched careers and ended up the Chicago Police.

_“Partner,”_ Ray emphasized, eyebrows up.

It took a couple more moments for the lightbulb to go on, but when it did, it was almost worth being snapped at.  Her eyebrows went way up, and she looked after the direction Ren had gone, before looking back at him.  It was enough to make Ray grin a little.  For a moment, a whole bunch of emotions flitted across her face, including a brief, if small, smile.  Then she nodded, taking a breath and letting it out slowly. “Cindy Chase.”  She didn’t add ‘nice to meet you’, and Ray had no trouble understanding why.

“Ray Vecchio,” he answered, offering his hand.  She took it and he gave it a courtly sort of shake. “Listen, somebody giving you trouble?”

Cindy’s face went wary again, though not as bad.  She took her hand back and crossed her arms, eying him.  She looked beat.  Beat and wore out and harried.  A pretty woman, though; Ray bet she was a real looker most of the time, in a neighborhood beauty queen kind of way. “They’re not trouble, they’re just... they keep asking me the same crap over and over, like they think the answer will change.  They won’t tell me what it has to do with anything, either.”

Ray wasn’t so sure about the ‘not trouble’ part, but he still had to allow for his own paranoia there.  Even so, he nodded. “Sound desperate.  Probably hoping to catch the creep who did this fast as they can.”

“Yeah,” she said, slumping against the wall.  She dropped her head back against it, arms still wrapped around herself.

“Can I get you anything?  Like, a cup of coffee or tea or something, if they got a cafeteria around this place?” Ray asked, gesturing around randomly in the hopes that one of the directions would be right.  Then again, given the size of this place, he’d run into it eventually.

“No, I had some in the staff room,” she answered, before rubbing at her eyes.  After Ray’s silent question hung in the air for a little bit, she added, “I work here; I’m an RN.”

“Ah, God.”

Cindy nodded from behind her hand. “At least I know he’s in good hands.  Even if they’re not mine.”

“Somebody shoots me again, I’ll know who to ask for.”  He gave her a little smile, which didn’t exactly stop the kinda shocked look he got back, but hey.  It was a second she had she didn’t have to think about the holes in her husband.  And it was proof a guy could walk away after it, too.

It made her drop her hand, though it went right back into those crossed arms.  A little less tight this time.  Ray wasn’t sure what else he could say to her; there were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but now definitely wasn’t the time to ask them.  Especially given what she was going through.

“How long?” she asked, and then added, “I mean, you and Turnbull.”

“Oh.  July,” Ray answered, with a little grin. “Kinda came out of the blue, but it’s been good.  Real good.”

Cindy nodded, looking off in the direction Ren had gone in.  Probably relieved to have some kind of conversation that wasn’t about bullets.

“How about you?”

“Seven married.  Two separated,” she said, without looking back at him.

Ouch.  He hadn’t meant to end up there.  He got it, though.  Even now he would stand by Angie’s side if she was laid out in the ICU.  And he could only start to guess how complex and messed up that would actually _be_ , too.  Ray knew better than to say he was sorry.  Instead, he just kinda let it be quiet for a few, before upnodding to her. “Hey, you need anything?  I mean, even if it’s just somebody to give you a hand with stuff for a couple days?”

Cindy did look back at him then, and Ray was getting less and less surprised by her wariness about it, but it also seemed like she wasn’t as wary as she had been at the start.

“No strings or anything.  But I get what it’s like from both sides of this, you know?  The one laid up and the one waiting.”  And the hours _he_ spent hovering around an ICU after Benny, and the hours he’d spent laid up himself, not really able to breathe right or move or do anything. “Dunno how long we’ll be here, but...” and he let it trail off there, an opening.

“I’ll let you know if I do,” she answered, at length, and he finally got something of a real smile off of her; tired but genuine.

  
  


 

So that was what a mystery looked like.

Ray went through all the standard stuff a person had go through when they visit an ICU, even if the ICU was tiny and only had one occupant.  But boy, they’d pulled out all the stops with that occupant; Ray wasn’t sure there _was_ a guy under all that at first.

Chase was kind of on his side, more tilted than turned, probably because moving him much more would have been dangerous; no real idea of what his height would be, but he had dark hair that was mussed up, and he was thin.  What skin Ray could see was pale and the kinda color that screamed _wrong_ , this sick sort of pallor that was instantly recognizable.  It was loud in there - something he knew from experience with Benny - with monitors and beeps and clicks and noises.

Ren sat in the only chair, like an untidy puppet with all his strings cut.  He looked up when Ray stepped in, scrubbed clean and smelling like disinfecting soap, and Ray wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Ren look quite that forlorn.  Lost, and exhausted, and worried.

“He is sick,” Ren said, the tone kind of... Ray wasn’t sure what it was.  Factual, but something else, too.  Like disbelief, maybe.  On top of the heartbreak so audible that it lingered in the air even after the words ended.

“Yeah,” Ray said, softly, just taking in his other-half for a moment and wishing he could snap his fingers and make this all right again.  Sick was expected, he guessed.  Gut shots.  It was gonna come.  There wasn’t anything romantic about putting holes in a person, whatever it looked like on TV.  It was ugly.  Did more things than just the holes, things nobody liked to talk about on screen.

“Really did a number on you, pal,” he said, quietly, to Chase.   _Mike._  Seemed kind of funny, or wrong, to think of the man by his surname while he was hanging on the edge between life and death, even if it took Ray a couple moments to remember that was his given name.

Ren’s mouth twisted a little when Ray spoke.  Ray guessed he probably hadn’t really said anything since coming in here, or at least, not to Mike.  Some people couldn’t.  Some people just didn’t know what to say.  Some people thought it didn’t do any good to say anything.  Ray always erred to the side of ‘speak up’ himself, though.  Just in case.  Just in case it could be heard.

‘Cause God knew, any voice out of the dark had to be worth something.

“I cannot...”  Ren was speaking very quietly, and then trailed off for a few breaths before gathering up enough momentum to say the rest. “I cannot understand _why_.  Who could ever do this?”

_Any scumbag desperate enough to get away._  Ren knew that.  Ray knew the question was just a question that wasn’t really meant to be answered.  They both knew what badguys could do, it wasn’t like it was headline news, but it was always different when it was someone you knew, someone you cared about.

And some quiet voice in Ray’s head had to wonder if maybe those files somebody was looking for had anything like an answer in ‘em.

“He was-- he would never--”  Ren seemed to struggle with whatever that declaration was.  “--hurt anyone.  He certainly... never deserved _this_.”

There was something about that Ray thought was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.  Well, aside the fact that sometimes, you were gonna hurt people in the middle of _arresting_ them; times when you had to use force, times when you had to wrestle with someone or whack ‘em with a baton or spray ‘em.  Then again, maybe Ren meant in the deliberate, not-in-the-line-of-duty way.  But there was something else, too, something way more nebulous.

And he still wanted to touch, wanted to comfort, wanted to fix it all.

“Tell him that.”  It was a whisper, more of a suggestion than Ray ended up wording it, but Ren still looked at him like he’d been jostled out of a daze.  It ached to see that look and not stroke it away.  “Tell him, Ren.  Just because someone’s out cold doesn’t mean they don’t hear.”

Ray had absolutely no clue how true that was, but he still meant it.  A pair of blue eyes flicked off toward Chase, before landing back on him.  Like he was caught halfway between thinking he’d look goofy and not making Ray feel goofy for believing that.  

Ray knew determination on his other-half’s face, though.

It was a while coming.  Whatever he'd seen on Ren when he was talking to Cindy, he saw again now, with a different edge.  Like just talking to him had to be snuck past some rule against it.  Like it was cheating, or stolen.  Ray knew that look.  Sometimes early on it had been directed at _him_.

"You... you never deserved this."  It edged a question.  Like Ren was testing out whether the mic was really on.  He dropped his voice; Ray started wondering whether he ought to go somewhere else for this.  "I...  I.  You... You are a good man."

Why did that sound so much like a crackle in the dark?

"This is Ray," he said, sounding like he'd fallen into some kind of half-trance.  "He is-- he's Ray.  We've come... I suppose you must know we've come from Chicago."

More silence.  Maybe the key was turning.  Ray watched those eyebrows shift from _I’ve just said something stupid_ right back to that determination.

“He is... my partner.  In the... the personal sense.”  Ren’s face was set as he said it, that same kinda defiance Ray saw a lifetime ago, leaning against a washing machine in Wisconsin, hand-in-hand. “I--”

“Excuse me?”  The quiet voice of the nurse barely made it over the sound of all the equipment.  Ray felt a little jolt; saw Ren jump. “I need to take labs; you’re welcome to come back later.”

“Ah, thank you,” Ren said, like maybe it was kind of a relief to be interrupted.  Ray knew better than to take that wrong, though.  What he just did was hard; woulda been hard for anyone.  He rose to his feet, moving the chair back out of the way, and looking for one more moment at Mike, before heading for the door, catching Ray’s hand for a quick squeeze on the way past.

Ray followed, giving a smile to the nurse, but directed his words at the unconscious mystery on the bed, quietly as he could get away with: “We’ll be back again.”

At least, he sure hoped so.


	11. Chapter 9

#### Chapter 9

 

Under heavy gray clouds, the atmosphere of Nipawin felt oppressive.

Little wonder why.

Marv, the bartender, had told him that the shooting was nearly all people were talking about; stories of a flaming funeral were long forgotten for the pall it cast.  Guy overheard snatches of conversation around town about it outside of the bar, as well; at the Evergreen, where he had gone for simple nostalgia’s sake, at the diner, even at the front desk of the motel.  People were frightened.  These things simply did not happen in Nipawin.

Until they did.

As with most small towns, people tended to notice that which was out of the ordinary.  Few things could be moreso than the initial rush of media interest, and few things could be moreso than the current anxiety about who had done such a thing to one of their more enduring Mounties.  Chase had been patrolling this town for eleven years; he was well-known, and well-liked, at least by those primarily law abiding, and even those acquaintances Guy had left here felt a certain proprietary pique that someone had shot one of their Mounties.  Even if he was the same Mountie they were often cursing as they cooled their heels in a holding cell.

They had also noticed the investigators that were worryingly interested in Renfield Turnbull.

“I can’t shake the feeling there’s something fishy here,” Ray said, leaning against the thick wall of the grocery store, arms tucked tight around himself against the cold.  The knit cap he wore and the long, finely made coat were somehow endearing, a thought that flitted through Guy’s mind and then away again on a swirl of cold air.

“Mm,” Guy answered, in the affirmative, taking a long hit on one of his hand-rolled cigarettes.  Inside, Renfield was no doubt awkwardly purchasing coffee and tea for their borrowed coffee pot.  Outside, Ray had apparently decided he needed someone to whom he could bring his concerns.

“They’ve been all over Chase’s wife, apparently.  She thought I was one of ‘em, nearly snapped my head off.  Something about not knowing about any files, or envelopes, and apparently, they’d already been through the house.”

Guy thought back to the file folders in Mike Chase’s office, weeks ago; the map on the wall, pinned and noted.  He had the strong suspicion those things were not there anymore, though he couldn’t venture to guess who had taken them if they weren’t: The investigators or Chase himself.

“I’ve dealt with hardcore federal assholes before,” Ray said, musingly, not put out by Guy’s lack of answer thus far.  Yet another thing Guy was coming to greatly appreciate about Renfield’s chosen mate. “They’re looking to burn somebody.  Because if they’re just here about the shooting, they’d be focused on different things.  Not what files he had.”

“Perhaps they think the files will lead to the shooter?”

“Maybe.  But I got a feeling about this one.”  Ray shivered, looking up at the sky with a scowl. “God, is it always this cold?  Geez, at least the sun would shine up in the Territories.”

“It will shine here eventually,” Guy said, looking up at the clouds.  Or, he hoped so.

  


 

One never could underestimate the value of a well-timed bar fight.

Mike Chase’s back door was quite easy to walk through; while it had been locked, it only took Guy two minutes to pick it, and without leaving so much as a scratch in the paint of the frame.

The bar fight was easy to arrange; his acquaintances also tended to be friends of Drew, and between the loss of Drew and the shooting of Chase, they were more than ready to cut loose and be rowdy, if in a more subdued manner than usual.  Guy did not tell them _why_ he needed the distraction - likely they assumed he was going to use it to procure interesting substances during a season in which they were difficult to find - but they were accommodating regardless.

The harried baby Mounties, already taxed due to the shooting, would be tied up.  The darkness would provide cover, and that left only Cindy Chase and the investigators to possibly contend with.  Given the hour, the investigators were the lesser concern; given her husband, Cindy Chase was quite likely at the hospital.

The house was eerie, in its quiet.  He found his way by a hand-covered flashlight, searching for something, even though he wasn’t sure _what._  If there was anything obviously important, it would have been taken.  Even so.

In another life he would have been half-tempted to raid the man’s refrigerator while he was here.  The house felt surprisingly empty.  Something that had been vacated so recently should not have felt quite this still.

He shoved his glasses up into his hair to better see by, and crept far enough to peer up the stairs.  Given that he hadn’t climbed them yet, he didn’t know what he thought he’d see, but it was precisely as empty as the rest of the house felt.  A sniff gleaned familiarity, out of place here; stale cigarette smoke.  He did not know Mike Chase well - didn’t know him at all, really - but knew that wasn’t part of his makeup.  He felt a niggling pique.  Guy had made love over more than one grave, but he’d never spat upon one; breaking into this man’s house was one thing.  Smoking in it was another.

He leaned against the counter for a long moment, pondering.  Sniffing, before moving on.  This place was his native kind of quiet, so he shouldn’t have found it unsettling.

The living room seemed to live entirely up to its name.  Guy had slept on many couches.  He knew one with a lived-in look.  It made him picture the man in his cosmic place; couch-surfing the tides of life, washing up wherever.  Guy was given of the strangest image of Chase with his mustache sticking up in all directions.  He could almost smile.

His eye was drawn to the glint of photographs on the mantle in the half-dimmed light of a flashlight no longer quite covered.

It was...

He found himself with a fingertip brushing one of them.  It was the most ground he would give to the nebula of cracks all around him, splintering as each hour, each minute passed.  More far-reaching than even he had suspected.  

It was a painfully intimate look into some place he had never quite known existed, and for the first time since coming through the door, Guy felt like he had no business at all intruding on it.

He forced himself away from the mantle and looked around; there were a couple of rifles in the glass-doored gun cabinet, and smudged fingerprints on the glass.  There were a few trophies displayed on top of it.  There was a large, old console television.  The room did not look ransacked, exactly, but it looked... ruffled.  Not the sort of ruffled that embodied ‘lived in’; the kind that accompanied ‘gone through.’

The office, on the other hand...

It was ransacked.  Quite thoroughly.  From what Guy could see, most of it was just old bills; mortgage statements, bank balances, utility bills, tax information.  A great deal of careful financial work, left scattered on the desk and somewhat on the floor.  Even the typewriter ribbon had been pulled out, likely for examination.  There were newsletters, regular letters and the occasional postcard.  Above the desk was quite an extensive patch collection from police forces in Canada, and some even from other nations.  The scent of old smoke was worse in here, and there was a spot of ash upon the floor.

Well.  At least the besuited fuckers had been kind enough to get most of it into the trashcan.  If this wasn’t so delicate a situation, Guy would be calling around to arrange something unpleasant and perhaps scaly placed in two toilets.

He just surveyed the damage for a few beats, before he turned around and headed back for the kitchen, trying and failing to stop himself before his eyes drifted to the mantle again.

All unraveled for one moment in time, he was starting to guess.

His departure was marked only by the sourcing of a can of apple scented air freshener from one of his many pockets.  It failed to remove the utter hubris that still permeated the air, but at least the smoke would have to put up a fight.

When he let himself out of the back door, carefully making certain it was locked behind him, it was already with the knowledge that there would be no outrunning the feeling he found in there and took with him.

  


 

It was grim enough that even Ray was having a hard time finding words.  The motel room was almost oppressively dark under the little nightstand lights, and Ren looked like he was any given minute away from just finding some even darker hole to crawl into.

So, by the time Guy got back from wherever the heck he had gone, Ray was relieved for all of thirty seconds until he saw something kinda _wrong_ on the man’s face.  He didn’t know him well enough to know _what_ it was, just that it was wrong.

“You okay?” he asked, breaking the silence for the first time in a half-hour.

“Mm,” Guy answered, and Ray was starting to get how those sounds he made could cover a multitude of communication sins.  The man should have been a cop, with skills like that.  Guy darted a look at Ren, who was sitting on the edge of Guy’s bed rubbing his hands together and staring through the phone, then back at Ray.

“I broke into Mike Chase’s house.”

...and man, Ray never saw Ren’s head whip up that fast in his _life._  It was instant, and so was the fury that lit up bright and hot in Ren’s eyes, and Ray looked between them with his mouth hanging open.  Guy was already backing back up to the door with his hands up.

“I touched nothing,” Guy said, raising his voice, even as Ren was up off the bed and looking like he was about to leap on him. “I was simply observing.”

“Why?” Ray asked, bewildered.  What was the point of breaking into the man’s house?  And for that matter, what was the point of telling _Ren_ he did, when he pretty much had to know what was going to happen?

Ren was breathing hard through his nostrils, clenching and unclenching his fists. “You.  You broke into his house.”

“Yes.”  Guy glanced at Ray again, without moving from his spot by the door.

 _Ohhhh... Oh shit._  Ray winced.  Okay, now he was getting it.

“Why.”  It wasn’t even a question when Ren put it like that.

“The investigators ransacked his office,” Guy said, plainly, and looked at Ray as he said it. “They left it a mess.  They rifled through the rest of the house, as well.  One of them was smoking inside.”

It was kind of amazing to see how fast Ren’s anger could shift targets, something Ray noted even as he was putting together details himself.  And yeah, that fishy feeling just got about fifty times worse.  Because if all they were after was Mike’s shooter, which _should_ be a cause for justice, why would they treat the man’s _house_ like that?  Ray got being in a hurry to find stuff, but if he was looking through a wounded cop’s house, he’d show some respect.

Ray was starting to wonder whether anything the RCMP higher ups touched came out in the same condition it started.  

“They’d hounded his wife, too,” Ray said, quietly, to Ren.  Might as well confess what he knew, as well.

Ren stared at Guy like he could maybe smite him, the investigators and the shooter, all at the same time.  He flicked a glance at Ray, though, then stared for a few more moments at Guy.  Ray knew that look; Ren wanted to say _something_ .  He just didn’t really know _what._

The seconds ticked to minutes, and then finally Ren said, tightly,  “He was worse today.  We could not even visit.”

Guy’s hand strayed to one of his pockets and sank into it.  In another life, Ray would have seen that on a guy and known it was someone’s head about to go on the block.  Didn’t usually go with a look at the wall, though.  

These two were well-matched with what could flit across a face in under a second.  Ray didn’t know exactly what he saw, but he got the feeling it was pretty damn rare, because Ren sighed and looked away, too.

Silence followed in the wake of it.

“Let’s go over to the hospital,” Ray finally said, after he just couldn’t really take it anymore. “Since we’re gonna worry and wait wherever we end up being, and at least there, we won’t have to wait for the phone to ring.”

  
  


Cindy had stopped side-eying Ren and him sometime earlier in the day, when they were all stuck in a waiting room while the doctors and nurses were trying to pull her husband out of a downward slide towards major organ failure.  Like there just came a point where she was too tired and miserable to really bother even looking at them like they were trouble.  Now, all she looked was haunted.

Then it was just waiting, and waiting, and a progression of people.  Her family, who she’d even introduced to Ray, while Ren was making himself scarce in the bathrooms.  Her co-workers, who’d get away for a few minutes here or there to give her updates or just moral support.  At least she wasn’t alone outwardly, though Ray got the feeling that in all the ways that mattered most, she really _was._

Now, it was quiet.  Long after the doors were locked, and it was just the three of them.  They got in because she let them in; Guy had decided to stick around the motel, though Ren made sure to give him the hairy eyeball on the way out just so he didn’t go anywhere.

The mystery of it all was easier to think about than the emotional.  About how he had sat there during the day or during the night, going over those few seconds on the train platform in his head, in a waiting room or in a chapel or next to Benny’s bed.  About what it was like to beg forgiveness from a guy who might not wake up again to grant it, and to give him your own.

About what it was like to love somebody you maybe thought you knew, all the way up until you found out you didn’t; to love them so damn much that it didn’t even matter if you did, or didn’t, just that they kept breathing and the heart monitor kept beeping and there was still a _chance_.

It was easier to think about how they ended up here, than it was to think about why they were.  What it meant.  There was a whole lot he didn’t know about any of it, but he got one really important part: There were two people hanging here on every heartbeat, every breath, of a man they both loved.

It was when Ray had that thought that he realized it was the first time he’d had it; he looked at Ren, sitting with his back bowed and his hands clasped between his knees, and wondered again where it all had gone wrong.

He looked across at the other one who had loved him but couldn’t seem to stay in the same bubble.  Cindy, he understood a fraction better, even if he couldn’t see the roadmap to this.  Sometimes, love just wasn’t enough.  Even when you had a whole heart full of it.  On the bad days, that was something that scared the hell out of him with Ren.

“You need anything?”  

It was kind of to both of them; whoever would give him an answer.  They actually looked at each other for a moment, then Ren said, “No... thank you, Ray,” quietly, and Cindy just shook her head.

Silence fell again for a few moments before Cindy looked at Ren. “Once they’re finished with rounds, you can go and see him.”

Ray hoped maybe if Ren saw the guy enough, he’d finally say whatever it was that he couldn’t find the last time.  His boyfriend didn’t seem to know exactly how he was supposed to answer that, except turn red and eventually force out his thanks.

When one of the other nurses came to tell them rounds were over, Ray got the distinct impression he was being silently nudged into driving Cindy home for some _sleep_.  God knew, the woman clearly needed it.  She had to be running on coffee and determination, and little else.

When Ren excused himself like he was committing a felony, Ray looked back at Cindy.  “C’mon, why don’t you let me take you home?”

She looked off at the doors.  After several moments, she said, “His chances are around thirty, forty percent, and that number falls fast when even the smallest thing goes wrong.  Even if he lives now, his chances of making it a month aren’t much better.  Say he survives this, the initial trauma, the surgeries to correct it, SIRS, and gets to the point he can be brought around and taken off the vent, his odds for making it a year without a fatal complication aren’t terrific, either.”

She paused, and when Ray didn’t say anything - ‘cause really, what _could_ he say? - she continued, “Now, assuming he does make it a year -- he’s looking at a decade, maybe even the rest of his life given his age, where he’s going to be more susceptible to every challenge made to his immune system and where a common cold _could_ send him back here to fight for his life all over again.

“Then you have to worry about all of the more mundane problems that crop up.  Fatigue.  Nerve damage.  Back problems.  Gastrointestinal issues.  His career, for that matter; take him off the road, and--”  She paused again, and then her jaw clenched and the breath out after it was angry.

“And...?” Ray asked, softly, after the silence grated on.

Cindy glared at the doors like she could laser them right off their hinges. “I don’t want to go home, crawl into my bed and pretend to sleep.”

Ray nodded.  Been there, done that.  After a moment, he just said, “Okay.”

The next nurse to plead with her eyes would just have to deal with it.  It was going to be a hell of a long, perpetual night for Cindy Chase.

"Why does Ren bother you so much?"  The thought kinda fell out of his mouth.  It came from thinking maybe he should go check on his boyfriend, and from thinking that for some reason Ren's presence seemed to make that long night longer, and for the life of him Ray couldn't figure out why.

Cindy looked at him like he’d maybe grown a third eyeball, or an extra ear or something.  Which was a little better than her looking haunted half to death or angry.  Then her expression shifted to something Ray couldn’t even really _define_ , and she looked back at the doors again.  When she did speak, it was a good two minutes later and with a bitter kind of twist to her mouth, almost like a smile, “He stole my husband.”

The look on Ray’s face must have been priceless, because only three seconds later, she went wide-eyed. “Not like that!”

Ray knew he was still staring, gaping, when he asked, “Then like what?”

Cindy sighed out, sagging tiredly.  She opened her mouth a few times like she was going to say something, closed it again, and clearly thought about and discarded a bunch of things.

He wasn’t really surprised, though he was really damn _curious_ when she finally just said, “I can’t.  Not right now.  Ask me later, maybe.”


	12. Chapter 10

#### Chapter 10

 

“So, I got fifteen minutes.  Lemme tell you about the mystery I’ve got on my hands.”

It was bright and early in Nipawin; the sun had just come up not too long before, and Ray had already spotted the investigators pulled up to Nipawin’s RCMP detachment.  Ren was barely sleeping in their shared motel bed, Guy had vanished into the night and wasn’t back yet, and Cindy Chase was finally sleeping in an empty room one of her friends had shoved her into.

Mike Chase was still breathing, even if the machine was doing most of the work.  Fragile.  Holding on, for the moment, but fragile.

Ray had never been in here by himself, but he was well enough known on sight now to be allowed in, and on an impulse, he’d taken it.

“See, Ren in Chicago... did you know that he spent almost that whole time as a glorified, red-suited receptionist?  I mean, I dunno about things up here in the Great White North, Mike, but doesn’t that strike you as a little bit _hinky_?  Yeah, me too.  But then, you already know that, don’t you?  You know _why_ he was there.  I figured out a long time ago that something happened to him, but the longer I’m up here, the more I’m figuring out, the more big it seems.”

Mike didn’t have any reply; he was just as gone as he had been the day before, and the day before that.  Cindy had told Ray that they kept him knocked out, way out, and paralyzed, but Ray figured that even then, somewhere in the dark, something might get through.  Benny had been kept under for awhile, too.

A lot of what Ray said to him there, he never spoke again.

Since he didn’t know this man better, he kept it to shop talk.  Even a more impersonal voice in the darkness had to be better than no voice at all.

“Then this happens.  Some asshole shoots you, and man, Mike, you should have seen the look on his face.  I hope I _never_ see a look like that again, because you’d think he was the one who’d just taken a bullet.”

Ray paused a moment, thinking, elbows resting on his knees.  Just looking at the frightfully still guy on the bed, like maybe if he looked long enough, he might figure out who he _was_.  Because there was another thing Ray was figuring out real fast:

Whatever had hurt Ren, Mike had been involved in.

“Everything he’s said about you -- and it hasn’t been much -- has been glowing.  Ren doesn’t give praise idly, either.”  A beat. “But I’ll bet you know that, too, don’t you?  One of my questions is whether you’re deserving of that sterling review.  I’d like to believe yes, but I don’t _know_ for sure, ‘cause you’re not able to talk to me yourself.  So, I gotta go on circumstantial evidence.

“Like, your wife.  She’s pissed.  Not just at the guy or guys who did this to you, either.  She’s pissed at Ren.  Like, these investigators.  What’re they after?  Are they hunting for your shooter, or are they hunting for _you_?”

Ray pressed his hands together and tapped them against his nose, softly.  Thinking for another moment.

“Then there’s Ren.  Who ain’t exactly the kind of guy to leave someone he cares about without so much as a postcard.  But he never said word one about you.  He only ever even said the name of this place once.  And now, I find out not only did he know you, but you trained him, you were his mentor, and your wife thinks he stole you out from under her.  You gotta admit, Mike, all this adds up to something fishy.”

He shook his head, then focused back on the man.  Time was ticking; the ICU had a pretty strict visiting policy, though they were clearly willing to bend it for Mike or Cindy or both, so long as it was safe. “I might do some digging around.  Try to get a feel for who you are, maybe, ‘cause that might actually lead somewhere, you know?  But I’d rather ask you for myself, frankly, so you gotta live long enough for me to do that.”

Someone scoffed, softly, and Ray looked up to find Cindy standing in the doorway.  She looked marginally better for sleep, but still not great.  Far from it.  She was almost as pale and drawn as her husband.

“Even if he could hear you, he couldn’t answer,” she said, stepping in further and looking at the monitors.  “Even if he was awake and able to talk, I don’t think he could.  Mike never was good at talking.”

“Eh, I can usually get even the real tough nuts to crack eventually,” Ray said, carefully casual.  “ _You_ wanna tell me who he is?  Few people probably know better.”

Cindy huffed a laugh, a sad sound. “I didn’t know enough when it mattered.”  She smirked, then, and dug into her pocket, offering him a key. “Go look around for yourself.  See if you can figure him out.”

The rest was unsaid, but easily inferred: _I don’t have the heart left right now to go into it, but someone should._

Ray took the key.

  
  


It was a nice house.  Kinda big, for two people; two stories, full stories.  Most of the houses in Nipawin were single story ranches or split-levels, some newer, some older, but Chase's house could have been dropped onto a farm and not raised eyebrows.  Looked older'n dirt, too.  It was set back from the road a good bit with a nice front yard that would have been real pretty in the summer, but was starting to look sad now that winter had settled in; tall trees spaced out around it, some kind that lost their leaves in the winter.  The house itself was painted off-white, with maroon trim, with a nice front porch on it, and apparently a pretty impressive backyard behind it.  It was the oldest house on this stretch of road, too; the neighbors were all newer split-levels or single-stories, and not too close.

It was quiet.  Real quiet.  Not like the kind of quiet of, 'someone was sleeping here this morning and just stepped out,' but like someone hadn't been here in _days_ ; there was a buzz, in houses that were occupied.  A sensation of someone having been there recently, and who was going to return, but this house didn't feel like that.

It felt half-abandoned.  When Ray stepped through the front door, he could smell the lingering traces of the cigarette smoke Guy had mentioned, and... apples.  Huh.  He could immediately see the disturbances, too, where the house had been gone through.  Things that left a little space where dust hadn’t settled to the same thickness yet; places where fingerprints were that probably shouldn’t have been.

Somewhere, in the back of his head, he wondered if Ren had ever been here.  He almost had to have been at some point; Ray hadn’t exactly gone _exploring_ , but he definitely had seen enough of town to see how contained it was.  There had to be occasion somewhere in those years.

There was an empty coffee mug sitting on the coffee table, and rumpled up blankets on the couch.  And a pillow.

“Ah, geez,” Ray said, quietly.

He knew they weren’t together anymore, but there was something aching about a man who’d keep sleeping on the couch long after the marital bed was a battlefield.  It didn’t strike Ray as pride.

There was more than one ghost here, a lot of ‘em Ray knew from his own life.  For the first time in awhile, Ray felt iffy for one or two unshared; maybe it was because he was busy touring Ren’s mentor’s house, he didn’t know.  It dispersed on the patient reminder of just how much an open mystery Ren really was.  Like a book written in a language he was still learning to read, sometimes.

Mike Chase seemed like the opposite.  A language Ray knew, just still coming into focus.

He kind of wondered why Mike ended up with the house.  Which was a whole can of worms in itself, really, because Cindy still had a key and their wedding pictures were still on the picture-packed mantle, pretty much right dead center in eight-by-ten.

Ray picked his way over there, just to get a better look.

“Huh.”

So that was what the man looked like when he wasn’t lying in an ICU, riddled with holes.  That was what his wife looked like, when she wasn’t halfway between divorce court and his grave.  He wasn’t the type to tear her out of pictures or hide them away in boxes; definitely not pride.

Didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d be like that, anyway.  Not that kind of pride.  Maybe the good kind, but not that kind.  Not with a silly, happy grin in his wedding photos.  Ray kind of idly wondered what his background was; he didn’t really look like he was of European descent, quite, not with eyes like that, but Ray wasn’t sure what he else he could have been.  

It was the kind of shot that made Ray want to smile back at it, too, so he did.  The smiles stretched all the way across the mantle; Ray was going to guess that one was Mike’s mom.  Same eyes, same coloring.  A couple of Cindy and her family, too.  The others looked a lot like other recruits. _That_ was the kind of pride Mike seemed to have; family on the mantle was one thing.  Could be obligation, though this didn’t seem like that.

Recruits, though?  It was a pride that seemed earnest, kind of innocent.  Mostly guys, though Ray didn’t stifle a satisfied kind of huff when his eye ran across one woman with striking blue eyes in there.  When Ray got to the last one, he figured out real quick why that made him smile as big as it did.

‘Cause Ren was there, in a five by seven, the picture standing next to a miniature version of an older model Caprice.

He felt something in him ache, even while he smiled back.

Jesus, he was so _young_.  God.  Baby-faced, smiling at the camera, standing in front of a newer model Caprice; it was a smile Ray knew intimately.  A little shy, a lot of enthusiasm, shoulders all square.  Looking like he was ready to leap into action -- go out and be a Mountie, go out and maintain the right.  It was sunny and bright that day, and brought out the gold in his hair.

"Handsome kid, like to meet him sometime," Ray murmured to himself, with a wry grin.  It was a gentle joke, even if there wasn't anyone to hear it.

The grin fell off of his face after a moment, though.  He looked again at that first picture of Mike, a brand new Mountie decked out in red serge with his Mom, beaming at the camera.  Then back again at Ren, lit up and bright and not knowing for even a second that something was gonna happen, somewhere in his future, that would lead to him not being able to really even speak the name of this place.

“God, what _happened_ to you?” he asked, into the empty quiet.

  
  


He went through the rest of it.  Found out a bunch of stuff that didn’t have much bearing on anything, except making him realize even more how messed up the whole situation was, and just how criminal it all was.  Chase’s shooting.  Ren’s heartache.  Cindy’s absence from this house.

Mike had debatable taste in music (lots of Rush, though there was at least a some decent music in his stereo cabinet), a serious affinity for the outdoors (camping supplies, hunting supplies, fishing supplies), kept his corporal’s stripes in an old, cleaned out cigar box (like Ray once kept his marbles in) with polaroids of things that Ray thought were important, like outdoor crime scene photos, until he looked closely and realized that they were there just because they were _pretty_.  His clothes were all neatly hung up or folded and put away, and his house was kinda dusty, but otherwise really squared-away, except where things had been gone through.

His kitchen was mostly bare, his closets were all organized and the photo album Ray found stashed in the drawer under the gun cabinet was heartbreaking.

He still didn’t know if he bought Ren’s sterling review of the man entirely -- not that he distrusted Ren, not for a second, but Ren was an idealist -- but he did know the guy had been in love with his wife, his house, his career and his cruiser.  That Mike had long hair when he was a kid, around the same time Ray was a kid, and wore all the same basic stuff that Ray wore back in the seventies in addition to a heck of a lot of flannel, and that he wasn’t a great photographer himself, but he cared enough to take pictures of things anyway.  Other Mounties, Cindy, family, friends, even a few more of Ren in there.  Fish he had caught, deer he had hunted, sometimes just one that had to be taken because it struck him as something worth catching on film; a sunrise or sunset, a river, a stream vanishing into green and gold, trees and sunlight.

He knew that Mike was silly enough to build snowmen, liked to curl and had a pretty amazing range of expression, from what he could tell of the pictures other people had to have taken of him: grinning or smirking or slyly amused or exasperated or sleeping in a lawn chair, arms crossed, looking content.

Ray knew the pictures stopped before they were current, too.  Like suddenly, Mike had some reason to stop taking them, and other people had some reason to stop taking them of him.

It was trying to figure out why, and not really able to shake off his own heartache at the images of his Ren in some happier time, that he stepped out of the door just as somebody was getting out of a car.  Ray immediately went to hover a hand over a firearm that wasn’t there, and the tall, thin blond guy with glasses straight out of the seventies eyed him as he leaned on the roof of the car.

“Wow, Cindy, you’ve really let yourself go,” the man said, dryly.

Ray paused for a moment, then breezed right on through with, “Well, yeah, you know that Estée Lauder crap?  Doesn’t work.  You see what it did to my nose?”

The man looked like he was trying to chew down a smirk or a smile, and Ray notched one on his internal scoreboard. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked.

“Ray Vecchio.  And before you ask, I got the key from her and she told me I could come over here.  Who the hell are _you_?”  Ray asked, from the high ground of the front porch.

“Bill Sandburg.  Sandy, to my friends.”  The man raised an eyebrow, and didn’t tell Ray whether he qualified to call him that or not.  “Investigator?”

“Of a sort.  What’s it to you?  Family friend?”

“Of a sort.”  Sandy’s eyebrow went higher.  “You don’t look RCMP.”

“Chicago PD.”  Formerly.  Ray didn’t volunteer that.  “You could say I got a personal interest going here.”

Sandy looked at him funny for a long moment, and then smirked. “Turnbull.”

  
  


Ray didn’t know whether he wanted to admire the quick thinking or punch the man out, but after sitting in one of the local diners with him for about ten minutes while they waited on breakfast, he decided he probably at least wanted to like him.  The waitress knew him on sight and they spent a few minutes talking - and carefully avoiding the topic of why Sandy was here - and Ray couldn’t get to the bottom of his coffee mug after that.

Little by little, they prodded and poked information out of each other, neither one getting ahead or behind, quid pro quo, tit for tat.  For instance, Sandy had known Mike and Cindy were on the outs, but hadn’t known they had gotten formally separated.  Ray knew that Severn had called him and was apparently up here at one point, but didn’t know that one of the investigators Ray was finding really hinky was one of the Severn’s personal _friends_.

Which was a yet another head-scratcher in a long series of them now.

He was a funny kind of look into the past, Ray found.  Sometimes a guy could talk about a place and time and take you right there with the beat of his voice; Sandy was one of those.  Ray could really use one of those when it came to a couple of people now.

So he’d asked about ‘em.  Gently.  All of them.  He and Sandy both knew there was one - maybe two - particular points of interest, but they understood each other pretty well, and around bites of his breakfast, Sandy kept it ensemble.

“Wiped right out, it was the funniest thing I thought I’d see that day.”

“Guy did _that_?”

“No, Mike and a whole lot of cold medicine did that.  Laurent just helped it along.”

“Yeah, okay, I believe it.  He pulled it on Ren not that long ago when we were out on the sheet.”

“A curling Chicago detective.  Sounds like a sitcom.”

“Action-drama with a dash of sci-fi, pal.  The curling’s the comic relief.”

“Definitely a different show from the Corp.”  The rank was wrong, but Ray didn’t point it out.  Sandy seemed to think better of it.   “Or maybe not.”

Ray squinted, feeling like there was something waiting to peek out from between the lines.  This whole place had that feeling.

“You know,” Sandy said eventually, “he and Turnbull were in the same room that whole time.  Completely normal guys, if you can call that rink _normal_ , anyway.  The second Mike went over there, though, the _air_ around them changed.  All the social grace got sucked out of it.”

A beat.

“It was like somebody hauled them both to the principal’s office, and nobody had a chance get their stories straight.  Chase is a great teacher; trust me, I’ve been one.  But you throw feelings into the mix, and those two would trip over each other’s pedestals and knock them over like dominoes.”

Sandy mimed destruction with his fork, all the way to some Canadian bacon.  Ray supposed any bacon here was Canadian bacon.

“Turnbull followed him around like a puppy.”  Sandy stopped, bite halfway to his mouth.  “--uh.  No offense.  But Chase, he took that in stride.  Never got a big head.  Just gave the kid the best training he could, long after six months was up.  Well.  Except the cruiser thing.  He shaped a perfect little carbon copy of himself with that one, but that was half so he didn’t have to give up 414 himself, and the other half because he liked sticking it to Severn.”  Sandy swallowed around a bite that he’d spoken around for a sentence or two now.  “Whenever they were around each other, it’s like they both wanted to be the best they could be.  Like having a personal life somehow made them too real for TV.  Would’ve stretched himself across a fallen bridge and let that kid walk across his back, if it came down to it.  Shame they couldn’t just have a beer together, for all that.”

The bacon got real interesting at that point.  Like Sandy was realizing he said something he shouldn’t have.  Or maybe wasn’t used to saying anything at all.

Ray let the silence hang.  The kind of hang that was a question.  It was the wrong thing to do, in the end; he watched Sandy clam up right before his eyes, spearing some of his breakfast on the fork and eating it with a look out the window.

“Love to hear that cruiser story sometime.”

“Sometime.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell again.  Ray had a good feel for people.  That door just shut, and even if Ray didn’t know why, he felt like he’d gotten _something_.

“Hey, is this a good place for tea?” He asked, after a while of watching someone else’s plate get cleaned.  “Clean?”

Sandy wasn’t slow on the uptake.  He gestured around them.  “This place passed Turnbull inspection a few years ago.  Don’t think the health rating expired yet.”

“Thanks.”  Ray half-grinned, going to leave before thinking better of it.  “Hey.  What _was_ the funniest thing you saw that day?”  He hadn’t missed that.

Sandy gestured with a bit of egg on the end of his fork.  “Purple rubber penis as a hood ornament.”

  
  


Ray chewed that one over when he got tea to go.  He chewed it over in the rentabucket, he chewed it over when he picked up Ren with a cup of tea and told a confused looking Mountie they were going to visit another Mountie.  He kept chewing it over long after he made the decision.

His stomach was doing something funny.  Bargaining with him, maybe, just to stop the car and turn around and not do this.  He never thought it would reach a point where he could look at it somewhere beyond the windshield and honestly think it was possible to say out loud.  He'd thought about it before.  Back when he wanted Ren to run far, far the hell away from him and never look back because he was sure whatever he tried to give his guy, he'd end up hurting him with it, too.  Wasn't until recently he looked at it like this.  Let it pick at him in some way that wasn't carving himself up and hoping to die.

He was anxious.  The kind that made him want a break from his own gut, but it was a certain anxious.  Resolved anxious.  Something that was gonna happen, and he just had to walk through it.  Everything could fall apart.  Or maybe he'd just domino a few pedestals.

There was a half-broken man in a bed in a tiny ICU in Nipawin in Canada, and Ray Vecchio was about to give him a few of his pieces.

"Hey, Mike," Ray sighed, his boyfriend at his shoulder.  Both Mounties had seen far too much of this room.  Ray woulda given a lot to see 'em talking on the ice, like in Sandy's story.  "You know, your friend Sandy is an interesting guy?"

Ray could feel stunned blue eyes on him, but he didn't let Ren's little shot of panic send his boyfriend shrinking.  One little handsqueeze held Ren right there.

"Man, I never cared for IA.  But I guess no cop really does, except IA cops.  But the skill ain't useless, much as I want them out of my business.  You can find out a lot about a guy from his fellow cops, especially when they don't mean to tell you something.  Me?  You ask other cops - and family, and friends - about me, you'll meet about six or seven different Ray Vecchios - real Vecchios, not counting blonds with attitude problems - before you get to the good man Ren here would try'n tell you about."

Another little squeeze kept Ren from interrupting with the soft protest that Ray knew was coming.  Ray knew him.  Knew Renfield better than he thought he'd ever know anybody, 'cause Ren knew him too, which he had been sort of shocked to realize at some point.  Maybe that was part of why it was time.

"But not you.  You're just one guy.  Different sides, sure, but it's all one ball of wax no matter how you look at it.  Nice guy.  Great teacher.  Good cop.  Maybe too good for his _own_ good, and if I didn't know any better, I'd say my Mountie got that last part from you."

Now, Ray got a squeeze back.  Ray didn't have any illusions that being involved with Ren didn't change his entire look into an investigation like this.  It did.  But maybe, in a lot of ways, it made him better.

"But I do know better."  Ray leaned forward, free hand between his knees.  "You're a good guy.  Same guy across the board, as far as I can tell.  'Til you started shutting off.  Not like I do, either; not 'cause you feel like you've got something in there too dark for anybody to see.  I dunno why.  Maybe because you've got something too bright to protect, instead.  If you feel like sitting up and telling me why I'm wrong, I'm not going to stop you, but I gotta feeling that it's because you thought the world was supposed to be one way, and it was the other.  And maybe something in the world felt the same way about you.  And when you lock like that - when everything's twisted up, when you did everything right and it still screwed you, nothing gets in.  Not while you're busy trying to twist it back to the way it's supposed to be.  Or it twists you up instead."

Ray thought about a lot of things, then.  Ren.  Severn, the lieu-type figure who somehow ended up with a friend sniffing around this; whose voice had been wrecked when he called Chicago, but was conspicuously absent from this town right now.  Cindy Chase, who the guy clearly still loved to death, but couldn't fix it with.  Shady behavior out of a guy who as far as anybody knows has never been shady a minute in his life.

Ray knew what he was getting at.  For all the chewing he did, he still had to mull the words over, as though Mike could actually hear them.

And for knowing that Ren certainly could.

"Sometimes you desperately need something to be just like you picture 'em in your heart.  Pristine and good, always there, never fails, never going to abandon you, 'cause it's the basis for your whole world.  It's the blue sky and the green grass; lot of things are fragile that people take for granted, so you need those things that aren’t so breakable.  Sometimes that's what you need.  Sometimes that's what the world needs out of _you_.  You can find out real quick how hard that is to be.  How much being a failsafe weighs on your back, especially when it's not even a plus, it's a _given_.  When it happens, if you're like me, you start to think maybe it's karma for all the times you looked at someone else and just wished to God they'd live up to what you hoped, 'cause now you're the one with disappointed eyes on you, even when the mouth tells you different.  Or just that you're never going to be enough, and that explains it all, from start to finish."

He rubbed his hand at his knee.  Thinking.  Ren was squeezing his other hand tightly now.   _Not over yet, gorgeous._

"Or maybe that last part's just me.  Maybe you get it better than I do, I dunno.  Last year, the feds down south helped along a little car accident.  Funny how things go; you know, Ren looks just like this Canadian mob guy I once put away?  He does.  Me, I looked just like this Vegas mob guy nobody could put away.  Had a pretty wife.  Beautiful little girl.  Coulda been my little girl. _Had_."

It seemed almost simple to say.

"Didn't know that.  Couldn't have known that.  They made the call.  Just like that, thinking I could be something good, I walked out of Ray Vecchio's life and into Armando's.  Armando Langoustini, who was mourning his family, who _was_ family, who was way too damn human for my own good.  And you know, Ray Vecchio could live somewhere under that, if he didn't think too much.  Which was the trick.  'Cause that meant it took him until half past too late to figure out how much uglier it was gonna get than what the feds ever let on.  Who figured out that no decision was a good one anymore, just the least godawful, who figured out that nobody cared anymore whether he lived or died, just that he was serving his fucking purpose for a while."

The world had narrowed to the sound of his own voice and the odd symphony of hospital machines; a narrow world he'd lived in before.

"And the guy living under Armando, he did his job.  Didn't trust anything, especially the bastards that put him there and told him he was doing something good after they'd taken out a woman and a little kid to get what they wanted.  You know, they say there's no honor among thieves, but whoever _they_ are never met a mobster.  Funny thing about bad guys; they're human, too.  And if everyone expects the good guys to be perfect, they all expect the bad guys to be pure evil, when the truth is they all look the same when they're broken and crying and scared.

"All runs together.  You never trust anybody, you do what you can, and when you find some little good thing you can do or be or protect without blowing your cover or getting your family killed or ruined, you take it.  You take it, until you figure out that the good you just did was for what they told you was the wrong side, and you wonder where you got lost.

"There was a cop.  And another little girl.  The cop was crooked.  The little girl was a little girl, five or so.  And 'cause the good guys and the bad guys all look the same, that crooked cop was Daddy, and Daddy took his little girl to the park.  I got the order, the hit that came down.  No time to contact my handler.  No time for anything.  The dirty cop didn't want to be dirty anymore, and they couldn't have him disrupting operations upstream."

Ray barely heard Ren take that sharp breath.  Didn't so much feel the hand lacing through his, either.  That was probably for the better.

"I think you never really know what you're capable of until you've got nothing and everything to lose all at the same time.  Nicky and me, it had to be us.  Too big for anybody less.  We had the shot.  I gave the order.  I had him shoot that guy in front of his little girl."

Breathing came at the same beat as one of the machines.  He didn't know which one.

"That night I watched a guy who'd break your leg while you begged for mercy cry his eyes out for that little kid.  Head in his hands, like a little kid himself, 'cause the bad guy was a kid once, too.  Still was, just like everybody else, somewhere under there.  I watched that, and then I get my handler on the phone, 'cause I want out.  I want out.  I beg for my life, Mike.  I cry and I beg like a terrified little kid myself and they tell me to take it.  They tell me that I did good, that I maintained cover and they can fix it, make it look kosher.  They tell me I have to take it.  That I'm disposable if I don't, they'll ruin me, my family, everything.  I knew they could.  I knew they would and I wouldn't mean anymore of a damn to 'em than a bug under foot."

He dragged a hand back over his head and sighed.

"I let Nicky go, Mike.  They were ready to take him out.  One by one, slow and safe, they were getting the Iguana family, and Nicky was next.  There was nothing like the line between right and wrong anymore.  What do you do?  What do you do when you're supposed to be something good?  I told him who I was, I told him to take his wife and his little boy and get out, and you know something funny?  He gave me his word.   _He_ kept it.  I let a cop killer go, Mike, because the world wasn't what it was supposed to be, and I wasn't ever going to be what it wanted me to be, no matter how hard I tried.  Everything was backwards.  The cop told the cop killer to run and that's how it is.  Ugly.  Honest.  No good, not even the least amount of _bad_ , just fucking there."

Ray didn't even realize the story was over until a few seconds after he stopped talking.  Ren was panting behind him.  Ray was somewhere else, and couldn't make himself look up yet.

"So that's what I see, Mike.  You and the world, and neither seem to fit what the other needs out of it, 'cause it's all too human.  So you protect what you can, and when you can't fix all of that, you pick the little things that you can save from how damn awful it all can be.  You put out all the fires you can 'til you don't have arms left to get them all, and scramble 'til you fall down.  And they call that a failure.  They all look to you.  Other cops, your wife, your friends, investigators.  They ask you why you didn't put out this fire instead of that one, why you didn't have enough arms or strength to use 'em.  And after all that, they wonder why the hell you'd want to keep the newest fire to yourself while you're trying to get it out."

Now, Ray was panting.

"So where's this fire, Mike?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last full chapter that was done in 2012. Feedback is greatly adored; we do have a bit of new material to post soon, but we're five years removed from this original stuff and it had never been posted before, so if you've got anything to say, we'd love to hear it.


	13. Interlude II

#### Interlude II

_May 1995_

 

 

"He was gonna apprehend her."

He'd said it so many times now it had become a refrain; had become like a litany, like a prayer on the rosary that had worn a sore spot in his thumb for the past day. Some of the people asking did it like they were just confirming it, but some of them asked like they knew the real answer was lurking under the surface, and Ray gave the same one to both and never wavered.

Held the line, even if the line was just one critically wounded Mountie in ICU.

Sometimes, Ray even said it to himself just so that he could pretend it was truth.

 

 

  
"You were gonna apprehend her."

Benny was gone. Just-- gone, deep. They'd done all they could for that bullet -- Ray's bullet -- and now it was just giving Benny time for the swelling to go down, for there to be less pressure on his spine and all those fragile nerve endings running down the rungs of vertebrae. It was a trade off, one nurse said, keeping him down the extra time; it was hard on a body either way, but the call was made and Benny slept and Ray talked.

Ray talked. Ray lied.

"Whatever anyone asks when you wake up, that's what you say," he added, knowing full well that Benny wouldn't--

But he _didn't_  know full well, did he? He didn't know if Benny was capable of lying like that or not. He didn't know _what_  his best friend was capable of, because Ray never saw this coming.

_I should be with her._

Ray never, ever saw this coming.

He looked at the man on the bed and then rubbed down his face, not too surprised when his palm came away wet.

 

 

  
"You were gonna apprehend her."

Ray hadn't slept in-- he didn't know how long. Well, he had to have, he woulda died by now if he hadn't, but he couldn't remember it. He could remember talking to the shrink and he could remember laying to bed a few more questions about what Benton Fraser, RCMP, was doing running after a convicted criminal; he could remember the charges against Benny being dropped and the bail money being returned and him paying off the mortgage on his family's house, but he couldn't remember the mundane human things like sleeping or eating or smiling.

They were gonna bring Benny around and hopefully take him off the vent tomorrow, and Ray didn't know what to do.

His litany brought him no comfort. It never had, but now it tasted bitter, too.

"Dief's okay. I mean, he's being spoiled rotten by Ma right now, but I told him you were here and getting better." Ray tipped his head back and closed his eyes, listening to the ridiculous number of machines currently beeping or clicking or hissing or whooshing. ICU's visiting policy was strict, but Ray came back as often as he could and spent the rest of the time bouncing around his other responsibilities wanting to be here.

His mouth twisted, tightened. His eyes stung in the dark shelter of his eyelids.

"I woulda-- I dunno. I woulda gotten it. I mean-- you going. I would have, but--"

But it might have cost his house. It certainly would have damaged his career. It would have ruined his relationship with his family, who relied on him to keep that roof and keep food on the table and even for all of that, the thing Ray couldn't seem to struggle or battle his way past was that he hadn't seen it coming. That he'd just trusted Benny implicitly and it wasn't until Benny was bleeding at his feet that he got the truth he'd never expected.

_I should be with her._

"You know," he started, not picking his head up, not opening his eyes but aware of the ticking of minutes, "I used to sit on my bed and stare at the drawer I locked my gun in? Before you showed up, all crisp and proper blowin' my cover. I'd just look at it, sometimes I'd even hold the gun before putting it away and I thought about how easy it would be. How quick."

Benny had no answer. But Ray talked, because maybe somewhere in the dark, his best friend would hear his voice.

"Sometimes I still think about it. Not like I used to. But the first night after you fell off that train? It seemed like a real good idea, Benny, it seemed like a _great idea_." Ray didn't move; felt the tears scald his face back to wet his temples. "I know it's selfish, you don't gotta tell me, but I wanted you to know that. That it seemed like the best idea I ever had right then, just-- find somewhere quiet and make it quick and then it's over and God can sort it out. My bullet was never meant for _you_. I mean, you know that, right?"

His voice cracked there and he swallowed, feeling the pressure of the bob of his own Adam's apple.

His breath came sore, but on time to the ventilator.

"You were gonna go with her," he said, the first time he spoke the truth. " _Ti perdono_ , Benny. I'm gonna be here tomorrow. When you wake up. I'm gonna be here until you don't want me no more, and then I'll figure out what to do."


End file.
